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However, the Book of Concord is a confessional document (stating orthodox belief) rather than a book of ecclesiastical rules or discipline, like canon law. Each Lutheran national church establishes its own system of church order and discipline, though these are referred to as "canons".
The history of Latin canon law can be divided into four periods: the jus antiquum, the jus novum, the jus novissimum and the Code of Canon Law. [2] In relation to the Code, history can be divided into the jus vetus (all law before the Code) and the jus novum (the law of the Code, or jus codicis). [2] Eastern canon law developed separately.
Positive ecclesiastical laws, based directly or indirectly upon immutable divine law or natural law, derive formal authority in the case of universal laws from promulgation by the supreme legislator—the supreme pontiff, who possesses the totality of legislative, executive, and judicial power in his person, [7] or by the College of Bishops ...
Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local ( congregational ) forms of organization as well as denominational . A church's polity may describe its ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches.
The ownership of ecclesiastical property in the United States was often an issue of controversy in the early years of the United States, particularly in regard to the Catholic Church. [ 1 ] In the United States the employment of lay trustees was customary in some parts of the country from a very early period.
The relations between the Catholic Church and the state have been constantly evolving with various forms of government, some of them controversial in retrospect. In its history, the Church has had to deal with various concepts and systems of governance, from the Roman Empire to the medieval divine right of kings, from nineteenth- and twentieth-century concepts of democracy and pluralism to the ...
Philosophy and theology shape the concepts and self-understanding of canon law as the law of both a human organization and as a supernatural entity, since the Catholic Church believes that Jesus Christ instituted the church by direct divine command, while the fundamental theory of canon law is a meta-discipline of the "triple relationship ...
[2] Also the ecclesiastical court had jurisdiction over the affairs of ecclesiastics, monks and nuns, the poor, widows and orphans (personae miserabiles, the needy) and those persons to whom the civil judge refused legal redress. This far-reaching civil jurisdiction of the Church eventually overlapped the natural boundaries of Church and State.