Talk:National church

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Hi. Leonard - I'm not reverting the article in bad faith, but I really think that this article doesn't adequately explain what a national church is, and what the difference is between this and an established state religion. I am therefore uncertain as to the legitimacy of placing the Romanian Orthodox Church here. This is because of the following three claims which add ambiguity:

  • The head of state is often considered the ceremonial head of the national church while at the same time not endorsing itself as the state religion.
    • This is simply not true for many states mentioned here. In Romania at least, the Orthodox Church does not consider President Traian Băsescu in any way the head of its church, and neither does Băsescu consider himself the leader. In fact, I could confidently say that for the majority of churches mentioned here it is not the case. Only official state, established churches have this. In countries with separation between church and state, the head of state has no religious function.
  • The first modern instance of a national church was the establishment of the Church of England
    • Again, this alludes to "establishment". The Church of England is the official church of England. This is not the case for the other churches mentioned here. Why does the article then mention this?
  • Your claim in the edit summary that "this article is not about STATE OFFICIAL church, but about churches that claim territorial canonicity over any nationality."
    • Now I'm getting it more, but do you have any evidence that the Romanian Orthodox Church, for example, claims territorial canonicity over the Romanian nation? Just because it's the Church of 88% of Romanians, and most members are Romanian, doesn't mean that it's the "Romanian national church". In a secular country, it shouldn't. Also, just because it has the name "Romanian" in it doesn't mean that it (the church) claims all Romanians must be Orthodox. The Romanian Catholic Church also has that title in it, as does the Romanian Baptist Church, etc. A lot of these churches are independent (as in, run from within Romania), and hence could also be classed as national churches. It's true that most members of the ROrC are Romanian, but does that alone make it a "national" church? Just because most members of Romanian Jehovah's Witnesses are Romanian make it a national church? Personally, I think this article fundamentally is quite POV by mixing religion and nationality (by the word "nation") in states where religion and nationality are quite separate.

Please clarify (and forgive me if I'm not getting the point of your argument until now) Ronline 13:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Romanian case: since 1862, with the elaboration of a liturgy in Romanian language by the newly-create authocephalous orthodox metropolitate, the ROC claims the spiritual oversight over the romanian nation. In 1925 the patriarcate was created and was closely linked to the state, after the Communist era, the ROC lost many of its privileges, but gained some support from the Ceaucescu regime. After the redemocratization in the 1990's, there is equallity of religions before the law, but the ROC still reflects its influence on romanian society and claims to be the orthodox national church for romania.
Do you have any sources for this claim? The other thing is that, even if it were that way, the way in which the article is written adds ambiguity and makes the categorization very arbitrary, bordering a bit on original research. I think it's quite a strange thing to make a page of churches which consider themselves as national churches, especially since a lot of churches do, even if they are minor and are not followed by many adherents. The three points above also haven't been addressed fully. Thanks, Ronline 08:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Ronline The article is about national churches (cultual & historically relevant denominations claiming spiritual oversight over a given nationality) and under this context the Romanian Orthodox Church fits as the national church of Romania, since has been present in Romania from a long time and makes an cultural imprint on the Romanian identity. This is NOT about ESTABLISHED or STATE churches, notice most of countries of this list are secular (would be a heresy to say that the Episcopal Church or the Orthodox Church is the State church of USA).--Leonardo Alves 23:36, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I understand what the article is about. But, the Romanian Orthodox Church itself stopped claiming it was the national church of Romania in 2004. See this article in Romanian, which starts with "The Romanian Orthodox Church is willing to drop its own [sintagma] as "the National Church" of Romania..." Romania, officially, has no national church, and unofficially, the ROC doesn't claim any pastoral jurisdiction over the entire Romanian nation anymore. This statement also makes things confusing - "Sometimes the head of state is considered the ceremonial head of the national church, while at the same time not endorsing itself as the state religion." Overall, I feel the whole notion of this article is a bit POV, because it suggests that somehow nationality and religion are intrinsically linked - i.e. certain nations have certain "national religions" which I don't think applies anymore. It sort of borders on saying that "if you're Romanian, then you must be Romanian Orthodox" or "Orthodoxism is a part of the Romanian national identity", all of which are POV statements. The fact that the ROC is influential is another issue - many other NGOs (and religions, for that matter) are also influential, but they don't receive this status of national church :) Therefore, if we're talking solely about which institutions see themselves as national churches, it's different, but I think the list would be considerably reduced. Ronline 04:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Problems

This article is a bit hard to follow generally, and I'm not quite sure whether it makes any sense to claim that non-established churches have any sort of national status, but there are two things that seem utterly ridiculous:

  • Firstly, several churches (the Gallican Church in France and the Celtic Church in Ireland at first glance, but there may be others) don't even exist any longer, having been absorbed into the Roman Catholic Church;
  • Secondly, many of the churches listed as national, notably the various members of the Union of Utrecht and the unions of moderate Protestant denominations in Commonwealth countries, embrace only a small proportion of believers in their respective countries - most especially the Polish National Catholic Church, which does not even exist in Poland herself.

I think that this whole article, while presenting an interesting topic that is deserving of further study, suffers severe problems and needs an all-over rethink. I'm certainly not qualified to carry out such a task myself, so - any ideas?

Also the Church of Scotland has a legal status as "the National Church". It is established in law (as is the Church of England) but that establishment in law is specific protections against state interference. The Church of Scotland is therefore both 'established' and 'free'.

[edit] Independent?

I'd never heard the term 'independent church' applied to a state/national church. In my mind, their are mainline churches (of which state/national churches generally form a part of), then there are other denominations (baptists, etc.) then there are independents (those not affiliated with any specific denomination).

I find it odd that 'independent church' points to this page, when for me, the two are opposites. Natebailey 11:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of the term National church

The definition given in the intro started on in the initial version of this article as

The term national church or independent church is a reference to a church organization in Christianity that exists within the boundaries of a sovereign nation. The head of state is often considered the ceremonial head of the national church. The term of national church or independent church tends to apply towards denominations that have directly split from the Roman Catholic Church.

In the current revision of the article, the definition has evolved to:

The term national church is usually a reference to a church organization in Christianity that claims pastoral jurisdiction over a nation. Sometimes the head of state is considered the ceremonial head of the national church, with the church not endorsing itself as the state religion. The term should not be confused with established church (state church): a national church differs from a state church in that a national church does not necessarily need to be officially endorsed by the state, and even may be persecuted by the government (as Orthodox churches were persecuted under communist regimes).

I perceive a big difference between, on the one hand, "a reference to a church organization in Christianity that exists within the boundaries of a sovereign nation" and, on the other hand, "a church organization in Christianity that claims pastoral jurisdiction over a nation". I think that the source of the definition stated in the initial sentence of the intro needs to be cited. If a supporting cite cannot be provided, I think that the definition should be changed to a definition which can be supported by a source citation. Also, if the implication here that a non-Christian church cannot be a National church is to remain, I think it needs to be explained (perhaps this article takes the word church as necessarily implying Christian church -- possibly implying that the concept of a National church is separate from and smaller than the concept of National religion).

The definition provided by Google relies on this wikipedia page for a definition, so let's not consider that.

www.m-w.com doesn't list a definition of National church. Its definition of national, though, is instructive if we are to take the word national as a modifier of the word church:

1 : of or relating to a nation, 2 : NATIONALIST, 3 : comprising or characteristic of a nationality, 4 : belonging to or maintained by the federal government, 5 : of, relating to, or being a coalition government formed by most or all major political parties usually in a crisis

The dictionary.com definition is "an independent church within a country, usually representing the prevalent religion."

The Infoplease dictionary produces a list of terms, including National church, and defines that term as: an independent church within a country, usually representing the prevalent religion. Cf. established church.; consulting the Infoplease definition of established church as suggested produces: a church that is recognized by law, and sometimes financially supported, as the official church of a nation. Also called state church. Cf. national church. I infer from this the possibility that an entity which is not the established state church of a nation might be referred to as the national church of that nation, and might possibly be one of several national churches in that nation.

http://www.catholic.net, which styles itself as The new, successor site to the Catholic Information Center on the Internet, has an interesting article titled Reinventing Church government which touches on this. Quoting (emphasis added by me):

...

There are, however, legitimate questions with regard to the exercise of papal authority, questions which are partly doctrinal but even more prudential - how centralized the governance of the Church ought to be and how much autonomy the "local church" ought to have. In the best of all possible religious worlds the argument for a high degree of local autonomy might carry considerable weight.

Perhaps the local church should choose its own bishop, from among those with whom the faithful are familiar. Perhaps each country should have its own liturgical calendar, with national and local variations. Each country obviously needs its own liturgical and scriptural translations, and who is better qualified to produce them than those immersed in each culture.

Could it even be possible to allow significant liturgical variations from country to country, rather than all liturgy being a translation of the Roman liturgy? The example of the Eastern rites of course shows that there could be. Perhaps in matters admittedly disciplinary in nature it ought to be the national church which decides such things as whether girls should serve at the altar, whether priests might marry, or how communion is to be received.

Here, the term National church is used to identify a portion of a worldwide church which needs to respond to localized needs within a particular nation, taking into account cultural issues peculiar to that nation. I take this as in no way identifying the Catholic religion (in this particular example) as being the national religion of the nation involved. Perhaps it might even be a minor church in the nation involved, yet still consider that portion of the church serving the nation involved as the national church of that nation within the wider worldwide Catholic Church.

But I digress (or do I?). Well, let me digress a bit more to observe that a google search which I did within en.wikipedia.org for the phrase "National church" produced 474 hits.[1] Apparently, lots of articles use this term. I suspect that many of these articles do not use the term in the sense specified by this article. I suspect that some of these articles misuse the term. I noticed that this article lists the Philippine Independent Church as the national church of the Philippines. I am not Filipino, but I live in the Philippines and I have never heard of that church. Following its wikilink, I see that the church is also known as the Aglipayan Church, and it is described as a Christian denomination of the Catholic tradition in the form of a national church (with a wikilink to this article). It appears to have splintered from the Catholic Church around 1899 when its founder, a Catholic priest, was excommunicated. I see that the CIA World Factbook ranks is membership at 2% of the population (per the 2000 Philippine census), so it clearly does not represent the prevalent religion in the country.

Getting back to the subject at hand, I suggest that a source supporting this article's definition of the term National church be cited. If a supporting cite cannot be provided, I suggest that the definition be changed to a definition which can be supported by a source citation. For now, I'll stop short of dropping a {{fact}} tag into the article. Comments? -- Boracay Bill 03:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I've browsed around a bit more on this, hoping to turn up some more info which may bear on the definition of the term National church. I don't think I've had much luck. Items which I looked at and thought might be useful included:

  • An organization named ICAN exists, which styles itself as a "Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic National Churches". This organization apparently sprang our of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, which is listed as the Mother Church on the ICAN website. The website lists Member Churches in a number of countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Italy, and others), which generally style themselves as "The Catholic Apostolic National Church" of the country where they are located.[2]
  • The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is a global association of "national and regional Lutheran churches". One example member church I looked at, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (which this article does not list as a national church in Canada) has an internal body named the National Church Council which performs administrative functions and which has authority to ... issue official statements on social or moral issues in the name of this church between its conventions.
  • I noticed some apparent confusion about the meaning of the term National church in Croatian Orthodox Church#1990s: "Some who support the creation of a Croatian Orthodox Church often stated that Orthodox churches were national churches of states and since Croatia was an independent state the Orthodox Church in Croatia should be a national church for Croatia. This however was a fallacy since although largely appear to be nation based, they are supposed to be open to all religions. And as well many opposed to the idea would mention how the Roman Catholic Church was the predominant religion, yet it also was not a national church and was based in the Vatican, yet many who wanted the creation of a Croatian Orthodox Church were opposed to a national Catholic Church. (emphasis added to a wikilink to this article)"
  • The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and Non-denominational Christianity separately quote a Scottish theologian as having written: The visible church, in the idea of the Scottish theologians, is catholic. You have not an indefinite number of Parochial, or Congregational, or National churches, constituting, as it were, so many ecclesiastical individualities, but one great spiritual republic, of which these various organizations form a part. The visible church is not a genus, so to speak, with so many species under it. It is thus you may think of the State, but the visible church is a totum integrale, it is an empire. The churches of the various nationalities constitute the provinces of this empire; and though they are so far independent of each other, yet they are so one, that membership in one is membership in all, and separation from one is separation from all... This paints a picture of a National church as very much a minor appendate of a larger worldwide church.
  • The article on David Andres Alvarez-Velazquez relates a story of how the Anglican National Church of Puerto Rico ceased to be a separate national church within the world Anglican community and rejoined the Episcopal Church of the United States.

I've come to the unhelpful conclusion that the situation WRT the definition of this term is messy. The wiki article on Church says "A church is an association of people who share a particular belief system." Given that definition, a national church would be the portion of a Church within one particular nation. Individual Churches might have subnational, national, or multinational scope, and might have relationships of varying closeness with other Churches, usually with Churches sharing similar doctrinal beliefs. A Church having multinational scope would be comprised of several national and/or subnational churches. A small independent national church might, over time, grow outside its original national limits as its members travel, settle in other nations, and perhaps establish branches of the Church outside of the nation where it originated. Several separate Church organizations within a particular nation might consider themselves the national church of that nation for the particular association of people which comprise their membership. The terms State church and National church have very different meanings, although a particular national church might also be the State church of a particular nation. I don't know whether or not any of the foregoing is helpful. -- Boracay Bill 05:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted removal of two churches listed under United States

I've reverted this change, done by Secisek in this revision, which removed tow churches listed for the U.S. I've also fixed a broken wikilink for one of the two churches.

The two churches which were deleted and which I have added back in are:

The edit summary for the revision which I have reverted read: "→U - No mention of this in the article. Please cit.", and I am not clear what is being requested here. I note that none of the long list of churches mentioned in this article are "mentioned" in this article except that this article lists them. I believe that the intended meaning of the edit summary was that these entries were removed because Secisek was unable to confirm that they are indeed national churches in the U.S.

This article's intro says: "The term national church is usually a reference to a church organization in Christianity that claims pastoral jurisdiction over a nation."

Communion of Christ the Redeemer says, in part, "The Communion of Christ the Redeemer is a Christian denomination that embodies Convergence worship and ministry. The church describes itself as Bible-believing, Spirit-filled, and liturgical/sacramental. CCR is in full communion with the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB) and is the United States member of the Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic National Churches (ICAN)."
United Church of Christ is not so up-front about describing itself as a "national church", but the page does say, in part: "... David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research who has studied the United Church of Christ, said surveys show the national church's pronouncements are often more liberal than the views in the pews but that its governing structure is set up to allow such disagreements."

Please, if standards for inclusion of entries in this article's list need to be defined, let's discuss that here. -- Boracay Bill 00:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I was working in good faith, but it is not an arguement I care to have. On one the link was broken as you saw. UCC? Probably doesn't belong here, but criteria is unimportant to me. Cheers. Thanks for the explaniation, tho. -- SECisek 00:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)