Canon law is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the individual national churches within the Anglican Communion. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these four bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The PC(USA) was established by the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state. The similarly named Presbyterian Church in America is a separate denomination whose congregations can also trace their history to the various schisms and mergers of Presbyterian churches in the United States. Unlike the PCA, the PC(USA) supports the ordination of women and affirms same-sex marriage. It also welcomes practicing gay and lesbian persons to serve in leadership positions as ministers, deacons, elders, and trustees.
An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than before the development of nation states. They were experts in interpreting canon law, a basis of which was the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian, which is considered the source of the civil law legal tradition.
A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a single judge could describe that judge as "their tribunal." Many governmental bodies that are titled as "tribunals" are described so in order to emphasize that they are not courts of normal jurisdiction. For example, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was a body specially constituted under international law; in Great Britain, employment tribunals are bodies set up to hear specific employment disputes. In many cases, the word tribunal implies a judicial body with a lesser degree of formality than a court, in which the normal rules of evidence and procedure may not apply, and whose presiding officers are frequently neither judges, nor magistrates. Private judicial bodies are also often styled "tribunals." The word tribunal, however, is not conclusive of a body's function—for example, in Great Britain, the Employment Appeal Tribunal is a superior court of record.
The United Free Church of Scotland is a Scottish Presbyterian denomination formed in 1900 by the union of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the majority of the 19th-century Free Church of Scotland. The majority of the United Free Church of Scotland united with the Church of Scotland in 1929.
Samuel Freeman Miller was an American lawyer and physician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1862 until his death in 1890.
An abstention doctrine is any of several doctrines that a United States court may apply to refuse to hear a case if hearing the case would potentially intrude upon the powers of another court. Such doctrines are usually invoked where lawsuits involving the same issues are brought in two different court systems at the same time.
Ecclesiastical jurisdiction signifies jurisdiction by church leaders over other church leaders and over the laity.
Ecclesiastical polity is the operational and governance structure of a church or of a Christian denomination. It also denotes the ministerial structure of a church and the authority relationships between churches. Polity relates closely to ecclesiology, the study of doctrine and theology relating to church organization.
Anglican doctrine is the body of Christian teachings used to guide the religious and moral practices of Anglicans.
Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, British Columbia is the cathedral church of the Diocese of British Columbia of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Dennis Canon is a common name used for Title I.7.4 of the Canons of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
Walnut Hills United Presbyterian Church is a historic church tower in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The last remnant of a landmark church building, it was designed by a leading Cincinnati architect and built in the 1880s. Although named a historic site a century after its construction, the building was mostly destroyed after extensive neglect caused restoration to become prohibitively expensive.
"Appeal as from an abuse" is a legal term applied in the canon law of the Catholic Church, meaning originally a legal appeal as recourse to the civil forum (court) against the usurpation by the ecclesiastical forum of the rights of civil jurisdiction. It could also mean a recourse to the ecclesiastical forum against the usurpation by the civil forum of the rights of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, 393 U.S. 440 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the secession of two local churches, including Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, from the parent body Presbyterian Church in the United States because, they claimed, the Church had departed from its original doctrinal tenets. The Court ruled that the state could not pass judgment concerning religious doctrine or church law.
Robert Adam Holliday Lusk was a Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter minister of the strictest sort, in a century which, according to Presbyterian historian Robert E. Thompson, was marked by increasing relaxation into less stringent manifestations of doctrine and practice amongst all branches of Presbyterianism. His career crossed paths with many prominent ministers and he was involved in numerous ecclesiastical courts at pivotal moments in the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Amongst Reformed Presbyterians, he was an "Old Light," and amongst "Old Lights," he would lay claim to be an "Original Covenanter." He was descended from a long line of Scotch-Irish, and the Lusks had fled from Scotland to Ireland, escaping religious persecution; many of them settled in America prior to the American Revolutionary War.
Serbian Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696 (1976), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the judicial determination of the Illinois Supreme Court violated the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendments. In matters of dispute within hierarchal religious organizations, the Establishment Clause precludes intervention by civil courts regarding internal disputes of church governance. Per the Establishment Clause, decisions imposed by hierarchal religious organizations are binding in civil courts.
Church property disputes in the United States arise when a disagreement amongst a church congregation or between a congregation and its national denomination results in a legal dispute over the control of the congregation's property. Litigation over the property requires conformance with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution which protects the autonomy of churches. Therefore, church property is treated differently than any other type of property by courts of law.
