This volume is the first comprehensive study of the Polish history of law and Christianity written in English for a global audience. It examines the lives of twenty-one central figures in Polish law with a focus on how their Christian faith was a factor in molding the evolution of law in their country and the region. The individuals selected for study exhibit wide-ranging areas of expertise, from private law and codification, through national public law and constitutional law, to international developments that left their mark on Poland and the world. The chapters discuss the jurists within their historical, intellectual, and political context. The editors selected jurists after extensive consultation with legal historians looking at the jurists’ particular merits, contributions to law in general, religious perspective, and period under consideration. The collection will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between law and religion. Political, social, legal, and religious historians, among other readers, will find, for the first time in English, authoritative treatments of essential Polish legal thinkers and authors.

History of the past one thousand years of Polish law.

This book details the legal ramifications of existing anti-blasphemy laws and debates the legitimacy of such laws in Western liberal democracies.

In 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte created the Duchy of Warsaw from the Polish lands that had been ceded to France by Prussia. His Civil Code was enforced in the new Duchy too and, unlike the Catholic Church, it allowed the dissolution of marriage by divorce. This book sheds new light on the application of Napoleonic divorce regulations in the Polish lands between 1808-1852. Unlike what has been argued so far, this book demonstrates that divorces were happening frequently in 19th century Poland and even with the same rate as in France. In addition to the analysis of the Napoleonic divorce law, the reader is provided with a fully comprehensive description of parties as well as courts and officials involved in divorce proceedings, their course and the grounds for divorce.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient resource provides systematic information on how Poland deals with the role religion plays or can play in society, the legal status of religious communities and institutions, and the legal interaction among religion, culture, education, and media. After a general introduction describing the social and historical background, the book goes on to explain the legal framework in which religion is approached. Coverage proceeds from the principle of religious freedom through the rights and contractual obligations of religious communities; international, transnational, and regional law effects; and the legal parameters affecting the influence of religion in politics and public life. Also covered are legal positions on religion in such specific fields as church financing, labour and employment, and matrimonial and family law. A clear and comprehensive overview of relevant legislation and legal doctrine make the book an invaluable reference source and very useful guide. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to practitioners in the myriad instances where a law-related religious interest arises in Poland. Academics and researchers will appreciate its value as a thorough but concise treatment of the legal aspects of diversity and multiculturalism in which religion plays such an important part.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient resource provides systematic information on how Poland deals with the role religion plays or can play in society, the legal status of religious communities and institutions, and the legal interaction among religion, culture, education, and media. After a general introduction describing the social and historical background, the book goes on to explain the legal framework in which religion is approached. Coverage proceeds from the principle of religious freedom through the rights and contractual obligations of religious communities; international, transnational, and regional law effects; and the legal parameters affecting the influence of religion in politics and public life. Also covered are legal positions on religion in such specific fields as church financing, labour and employment, and matrimonial and family law. A clear and comprehensive overview of relevant legislation and legal doctrine make the book an invaluable reference source and very useful guide. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to practitioners in the myriad instances where a law-related religious interest arises in Poland. Academics and researchers will appreciate its value as a thorough but concise treatment of the legal aspects of diversity and multiculturalism in which religion plays such an important part.

Growing religious antagonisms are challenging the ultimate goal of ‘living together’ in peaceful societies. Living together explores international law responses, beginning with their historic roots, before the perspective shifts to the role of religious institutions and religious law. Contributions of different human rights bodies are analyzed, before further sections deal with the international protection of religion, the relationship between religious beliefs and freedom of expression, and the roles of other individual rights. Religion and International Law originates from the long-standing cooperation between the German and the French Societies of International Law, thus bringing together the traditions of French laicism and a cooperative German approach. Experts from Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK complement the pan-European perspective.

This book provides an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of Eastern Christian churches in Europe, the Middle East, America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Written by leading international scholars in the field, it examines both Orthodox and Oriental churches from the end of the Cold War up to the present day. The book offers a unique insight into the myriad church-state relations in Eastern Christianity and tackles contemporary concerns, opportunities and challenges, such as religious revival after the fall of communism; churches and democracy; relations between Orthodox, Catholic and Greek Catholic churches; religious education and monastic life; the size and structure of congregations; and the impact of migration, secularisation and globalisation on Eastern Christianity in the twenty-first century.

This is a single-volume history of Christianity in Poland, a subject at the core of religious history and European secular history alike. The book covers the development of Polish Christianity from the tenth century to the year 2000, placing it in the broader context of East-Central European political, social, religious and cultural history. Jewish-Christian relations, and the problematic religious history of the Jews in the region, play an important part in the story, and there are pervasive references to countries historically linked to Poland, such as Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine. Jerzy Kloczowski shows how the history of Poland, and Polish Christianity, are embedded in the complex systems of relations with other countries and religious denominations. A History of Polish Christianity should be read by anyone interested in the confrontation between Christianity and the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and in the interplay between Eastern and Western Christianity.

Freedom of Religion. A Comparative Law Perspective consists of five chapters, looking at freedom of religion, particularly the display of religious symbols, in Poland, Italy, Hungary, and the United States. It provides a concise and very insightful look into the legal regimes of four nations, allowing reader to get a solid comparative view of public religious displays in these countries. Each chapter has sufficient depth and overall this edited volume will be a useful resource to scholars and jurists in this area. Dr. James C. Phillips, Stanford University’s Constitutional Law Center The presented volume leads to an in-depth reflection on the issue of the display of religious symbols in the public sphere, which is widely discussed today. Most of the articles prove that secularism of the contemporary state ruled by law targets Christian symbolism (cross, cradle, the Decalogue). Christian religious symbols shall always be inscribed in the temporal order, otherwise they have no chance to be displayed in the public sphere. In this way, the rights of Catholic believers, as one of the dominant religious groups, are restricted in the name of the protection of religious and areligious minorities. As a result, the aim is to bring about the actual equality of all religions and – ultimately – the final removal of the Christian tradition from Western culture. Against this background, Polish (as well as Hungarian and Italian) judicial decisions present a different approach, which – as the authors of the volume prove – presents a position in favour of the presence of religious symbolism in the public sphere. The multifaceted evaluation of the inconsistency, casuistry and nuance of the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court is extremely creative and interesting. It allows to conclude that the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court, which usually limits the presence of religious symbols in the public forum, has not yet become universally binding. The pluralism of philosophical and religious attitudes still constitutes the axiological core of American democracy. Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Dziadzio, Jagiellonian University in Kraków