Canon law

Canon law is the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church of the Latin Rite and the Eastern Catholic Churches. It governs the internal affairs of the Church community and provides for many areas before its own jurisdiction. Its name derives from the Greek / Latin canon, guide ' from, because the individual standard complexes are referred to in the Code of Canon Law as canons.

The collection and codification of canon law began in the Middle Ages and led to the collection of the Corpus Juris Canonici, which remained the authoritative Code of the Roman Catholic Church until 1917. In 1917 for the Latin Church for the first time the revised Code of Canon Law, which has been completely revised in 1983. For the Eastern Catholic Churches the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium was adopted in 1990.

The right of the Catholic Church drove the development of the German procedural law, especially the criminal trial, greatly advanced. Even the law of obligations, for example, by a native of canon law principle pacta sunt servanda, contracts must be adhered been significantly affected, as this allows the strict formality of Roman law could be overcome '. In the marriage law, it limited the relatives marriage and established the mutual marital fiduciary duty. The canon law was in communicating the moral-theological concept of punishment to the secular criminal law of central importance.