Religion in the Public Education System of Bulgaria

uropéenne Union e ’ l ans État d ’ THE MUTUAL ROLES OF RELIGION AND STATE IN EUROPE des religions et de l et religions des INTERFÉRENCES MUTUELLES utuelles DES RELIGIONS ET DE L’ÉTAT DANS L’UNION EUROPÉENNE The Mutual Roles Religion in Europe and State Mutual of The m Interférences Edited by BALÁZS SCHANDA CHANDA ISBN 978-3-9814926-2-0 S ZS ZS Á AL B This book is dedicated to Professor em. Enrico Vitali University of Milan, Italy This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, re- printing, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction by pho- tocopying machine or similar means and storage in data banks. © 2014 European Consortium for Church and State Research http://www.churchstate.eu/ 2nd edition – Printed in Trier, Germany ISBN 978-3-9814926-2-0 THE MUTUAL ROLES OF RELIGION AND STATE IN EUROPE INTERFÉRENCES MUTUELLES DES RELIGIONS ET DE L’ÉTAT DANS L’UNION EUROPÉENNE Proceedings of the 24rd Congress of the European Consortium for Church and State Research Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest 8 – 11 November 2012 Edited by BALÁZS SCHANDA Published by the Institute for European Constitutional Law, University of Trier, on behalf of the European Consortium for Church and State Research 2014 CONTENTS – SOMMAIRE PREFACE Balázs Schanda ................................................................... 7 NATIONAL REPORTS – THE MUTUAL ROLES OF RELIGION AND STATE IN: Austria Richard Potz and Brigitte Schinkele ....................... 9 Cyprus Achilles Emilianides................................................ 25 Czech Republic Jiří Rajmund Tretera and Záboj Horák ..... 33 Estonia Merilin Kiviorg ....................................................... 43 France Brigitte Basdevant-Gaudemet .................................. 61 Germany Gerhard Robbers ................................................. 81 Hungary Balázs Schanda ..................................................... 91 Italy Francesco Margiotta Broglio ...................................... 103 Latvia Ringolds Balodis ...................................................... 113 The Netherlands Sophie van Bijsterveld .............................. 143 Poland Michał Rynkowski ................................................... 153 Portugal José de Sousa e Brito ............................................ 169 Slovakia Michaela Moravčíková ......................................... 177 Slovenia Blaž Ivanc ............................................................. 193 Spain Agustín Motilla .......................................................... 209 Sweden Lars Friedner ......................................................... 233 United Kingdom David McClean ........................................ 239 EUROPEAN REPORTS The State from the Perspective of Religious Laws: A Global Approach with Particular Reference to Christianity Norman Doe ........................................................................ 261 The State’s Understanding of the Role and Value of Religion: Political Perspectives Marco Ventura .................................................................... 301 The State’s Understanding of the Role and Value of Religion: Legal Perspectives Richard Potz ....................................................................... 315 ANNEX: Grille thématique ................................................ 325 CONTRIBUTORS ............................................................. 327 6 PREFACE The 24th annual conference of the European Consortium for Church and State Research took place in Budapest on the 8th and the 9th of November, 2012. Members of the Consortium have shared their insights into the role of religion and state in Europe, how major religious communities regard the state and what politics and the law expects from religious communities. Besides national reports three major papers were presented by Professor Norman Doe, Professor Marco Ventura and Professor Richard Potz. Besides national reports their papers are also includ- ed to this volume. Closing reflections were given by Professor Rik Torfs. Special thanks are due to Norman Doe, who has contributed significantly in shaping the grille thématique for national reports. Professor Doe has also helped the publication of this volume by checking the language of non-native English speaker authors. In this work he was assisted by two colleagues at Cardiff: Kate Millar and Miranda Brijlall, both of whom are undergraduates at Cardiff Law School. The conference was made possible by a grant of the European Union and Hungary enhancing scientific research at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University. Budapest, 2012 Balázs Schanda THE MUTUAL ROLES OF RELIGION AND STATE IN AUSTRIA RICHARD POTZ AND BRIGITTE SCHINKELE I. THE STATE’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE ROLE AND VALUE OF RELIGION: POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES Historical Background The oldest elements of the socio-cultural and psychological factors determining Austrian law on religion go back to the Habsburgian counter-reformation and the Josephinian established church, some of which remained influential until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On 1 May 1934, the last attempt was made to instrumen- talize Catholicism for the political system with a corporative- authoritarian constitution (Christlicher Ständestaat). The “An- schluss” to Nazi Germany on 13 March 1938 brought an end to the denominational structure of Austria. The Concordat of 1933 was declared invalid and that of the German Reich was not extended so that no concordat was applied to Austria. After the reconstitution of Austria in 1945, as a transitional measure, the laws and statutory instruments adopted after 13 March 1938 were maintained in force insofar as their contents did not contradict “the existence of a free and independent Austrian State and the principles of a true democracy, or conflict with the sense of justice of the Austrian people, or contain ideological traits of Na- tional-Socialism”. A number of laws (e.g. the Act on Unifying the Law on Matrimony and Divorce1 and the Law on Church Contribu- tions2) were transferred almost entirely to the legal system of the Republic. 1 Gesetz vom 6. Juli 1938 zur Vereinheitlichung des Rechts der Eheschließung und Ehescheidung (im Land Österreich und im übrigen Reichsgebiet), DRGBI I p. 807 (GBILÖ 1938/244). 2 Gesetz über die Erhebung von Kirchenbeiträgen im Lande Österreich, GBILÖ 1939/543. RICHARD POTZ AND BRIGITTE SCHINKELE After 1945 the Catholic Church, as the most important religious community, had to come to terms with its past as it had supported the authoritarian regime between 1934 and 1938. Since 1950, the question of the continued validity of the Con- cordat of 1933 has created a conflict between the dominant political parties because of the Concordat’s provision on marriage law, which in some respects had the texture of a “Kulturkampf”. In 1957, the Federal Government expressly recognised the validity of the Concordat. This provided the starting-point of new State and Church relations and new legislation. By the end of the 1950s, which had linked cultural conserva- tism with revolutionary changes in the technical and economical fields, the church was definitely no longer able to be successful with such a strategy. The mid-1960s finally brought about a change in the attitude towards the Churches, as institutions in the sense of “believing without belonging”. This has many reasons: on the one hand, the Church was captured by the identity crisis of all major institutions; and on the other hand, the Church was not able to use the Second Vatican Council in a decisive way as an opportunity for change. As in other places, the development in Austria also took a rather contrary course as was reflected particularly in the public debate about the encyclical “Humanae Vitae”. A new and larger field of conflict arose in the 1970s with the introduction of the legal possibility of a first-trimester abortion. In the following years, there were also discussions on several pieces of new legislation, such as in the field of monument protection, data protection, registration law and the question of the inclusion of religion in the census. Since the 1990s, there have been some changes in the public perception of the Churches. They were increasingly seen as re- minders of social problems, in particular concerning asylum and immigration law, development cooperation and ethical issues asso- ciated with new technologies (in particular in the field of bio- sciences). Religion in the Policy Statement of the Austrian Government The policy statement of the Government at the beginning of each legislative period in principle has the task of clarifying the priori- 10 AUSTRIA ties of the Government’s forthcoming work. It is interesting that the policy statement of the recent Austrian Government (during the period of 2008 to 2013) refers to religion only three times. This restraint can be interpreted in two directions: religions are of minor interest for the State’s policy or there is almost no acute problem in the relationship between State and religious communities. It seems that in the present case this restraint was a mixture of both. The three points in the statement are the following: First, the statement refers to religion in connection with penal law. Under the heading, “Traditionally Based Violence” (Tradi- tionsbedingte Gewalt) it is emphasised that there is no justification, exculpation or mitigation of punishment by relying

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