Cuius regio, eius religio

Cuius regio, eius religio, also: cuius regio, Illius religio (Latin for: whose territory whose religion ', in the former language use often: , which is why the prince of the believers ''), is a Latin phrase that states that the ruler of a country is entitled to prescribe the religion of its inhabitants. It is the short form of a low- down in the Peace of Augsburg and the Peace of Westphalia legal principle. The Latin phrase was coined by the Greifswald law professor Joachim Stephani in 1612.

The origin to the Reformation

Since formation of the state in ancient times the state power was used as a divine institution construed (→ divine ). So it was a hand job of the state to ensure the protection and dissemination of approved (state) religion. A deviation from the respective state religion presented the other hand, the basis of legitimacy of the state in question. Therefore, the rulers considered themselves obliged and entitled to enforce the state-recognized religion. Examples of this combination of state and religion can be in Ancient Egypt ( godlike position of the king ), ancient Greece ( asebeia ) or refer to the imperial cult of the Roman Empire. Since 380, Christianity was the state religion of the Roman Empire and served both as a basis of legitimacy for the secular rule. In the Holy Roman Empire Catholic Christianity up to the beginning of the early modern period presented virtually the state religion dar. heresy, that religious differences within the Church was persecuted by the imperial law. The magisterial custody and preservation of the state religion were at the time of the Reformation in 1517 the norm and another state in principle inconceivable. Exception was the more or less tolerated Jewish religion.

Reich crisis of the Reformation

During the Reformation turned Protestant by 1517 large tracts of land in Western, Northern and Central Europe. The ruling in the Holy Roman Empire Charles V, part of the princes and large parts of the princely clergy, the Reformation but did not join. This shattered the religious unity of the empire. The Reichstag 1527-1545, the Colloquy 1540-1546, the Smalcald War 1546/47 and the Augsburg Interim in 1548 were able to restore these not. This was an all together mandatory law against heresy on imperial level de facto no longer enforceable. The regulation of cuius regio, ... was the answer to the rich constitutional crisis that Protestants despite religious difference could not be excluded from the rule of the Empire.

Legal rule

During the Reformation the principle of magisterial determination of religion under the name of jus reform andi has been recast in Germany. With the Treaty of Passau in 1552 and in the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, a political stalemate between the Emperor, Lutheran and Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, was initiated to suspend prosecution for heresy against the Lutherans. The magisterial determination and supervision of religion but was not abolished, but shifted to the level of the territories. In these there was still an authoritarian enforced religion. Recognized in the sense of the Peace of Augsburg were initially only Catholics and Lutherans (cf. § 17). The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 then moved into one as the Protestant denomination in the warranty.

This core aspect of jus was reform andi 1610 by Pomeranian canonists Joachim Stephani with the phrase " cuius regio, eius religio " popularized.

Closely associated with the right set Cuius regio, eius religio was jus emigrandi in § 24 of the Peace of Augsburg. Thereafter, subjects were who did not follow the creed of the sovereign, to emigrate in the company of their family and taking along their property. The subjects thus had the right to avoid a forced change of confession. However, this migration could only be carried out for reasons of faith, when all manorial obligations were discharged; for example, by ransoming of a servitude, which could mean financial ruin.

Exceptions

Spiritual dominions

An important exception to the " Cuius Regio principle " existed in the form of reservatum ecclesiasticum clergyman reservation '. He governed that a Roman Catholic, spiritual ruler of his possessions and dominion rights lost when he was a Protestant. The cathedral chapter and the monastery Convention then had to choose a Roman Catholic successor. To compensate for the disadvantage, the proviso was the Protestants by the clergy, was King Ferdinand I. from the so-called Declaration Ferdinandea by which the rights of landsässigen Protestant knights and cities were secured in ecclesiastical territories.

Imperial Cities

In the imperial cities were after the Reformation often several denominations. Here, the performance first "state" - and social models that could dispense with authoritarian specific, predetermined by the state unit religion. This included approximately simultaneous churches or sectarian proportional representation in the municipal bodies. There were cities in which up to four " religions " officially existed side by side, about Frankfurt am Main: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Jewish.

Evaluation and impact

The Cuius Regio principle means the principle legal recognition that a change of confession - if at first only for rulers and for individual confessions - was possible and legitimate. The religious peace was first temporarily and definitively established after the breakup of the confessional unity in the wake of the Reformation in the Peace of Westphalia. The question of truth was suspended on imperial level and it was placed on methods by which the two denominations could deal with each other, such as the itio in partes. This was on imperial level reaches a first secularization of state power and thus developed a requirement for the modern, liberal state in its infancy.

In addition to this constitutional effect, the principle also had a charisma to the sphere of individual rights: the jus emigrandi was the first individual in matters of religion an individual freedom area, although the exercise was complicated by high material obligations. It thus represents a preform of today's religion or freedom of conscience dar. in the various parts of the empire was in the course of 18-19. Century, the ability to tolerate multiple denominations in a country, made ​​possible by political constraints and the force acting in the 18th century Enlightenment. This development led in the constitution of the 19th century to the individual right to religious freedom.

Outside of the Holy Roman Empire

In France, a juxtaposition of the denominations only occasionally in the 16th century was possible. The "Sun King " Louis XIV ended in 1685 through his Edict of Fontainebleau religious tolerance, true to the formula: " un roi, une loi, une foi " ( German: " A king, one law, one faith ").

In the United Kingdom are still constitutional relics of the principle cuius regio, eius religio in force. Confession -determining sovereign is here the monarch in conjunction with the Parliament (King -in- parliament ). To As part of his right over the throne determine it closes as before by the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement people from the succession, belonging to the Catholic Church or have heard. These restrictions do not apply automatically for their offspring, or if the husband converted during an existing marriage. The religious liberty of the subject was not always guaranteed for Catholics and radical Protestants ( Dissenters ), but has been granted since the 18th century.

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