Landeskirche

In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche (plural - "Landeskirchen") is the church of a region. In Germany, they originated as the national churches of the independent states or landes that later unified to form Germany.

In Germany

Origins

In the pre-Reformation era, the organization of the church within a "lande" was understood as a "landeskirche", certainly under a higher power (the pope or a patriarch), but also possessing an increased measure of independence, especially as concerning its internal structure and its relations to its king, prince or ruler. Unlike in Scandinavia and England, the bishops in the national churches did not survive the Reformation, making it impossible for a conventional diocesan system to continue within Lutheranism. Therefore Martin Luther demanded that, as a stop-gap, each secular "Landesher" should exercise episcopal functions in his own territories. The principal of "cuius regio, eius religio" also arose out of the Reformation, and according to this a Landesher chose what denomination his subjects had to belong to. This led to closed, insular landeskirchen. The principle was a byproduct of religious politics in the Holy Roman Empire and soon softened after the Thirty Years' War.

At the time of the abolition of the monarchy in Germany in 1918, the Landesherren were Landesbischöfe (Landes bishops) in the administrative areas), and the ties between church and nation came to be particularly close, even with Landesherren outside the Lutheran church. So the (Roman Catholic) king of Bavaria was at the same time bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. In practice, the Landesherren exercised episcopal functions only indirectly through a "Konsistorium" or Consistory.

Today

List

Offices and institutions

Administration

In Switzerland

Switzerland has no country-wide state religion, though most of the cantons (except for Geneva and Neuchâtel) recognize official "Landeskirchen", in all cases including the Catholic Church and the Swiss Reformed Church. These churches, and in some cantons also the Old Catholic Church and Jewish congregations, are financed by official taxation of adherents. [ [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35487.htm state.gov - Switzerland] ]

Notes

ee also

*German Evangelical Church
*Swiss Protestant Church League