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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 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 ...
With few exceptions, the authority of a major archbishop in his sui iuris church is equivalent to that of a patriarch in his church. [48] This less prestigious office [ 49 ] was established in 1963 for those Eastern Catholic Churches which have developed in size and stability to allow full self-governance if historical, ecumenical, or political ...
Catholic thinkers believed that government authority was to be limited by natural and customary laws, as well as independent institutions such as the Church. [2] Even papal authority should be balanced by the secular nobility (episcopalism) and the Church hierarchy (election of the Pope by the conclave, and the conciliar movement).
The Hutterite church traces its roots back to the Radical Reformation and Jacoub Hutter, but respect and adhere to government authority. [23] The Bruderhof, another church community in the Anabaptist tradition, respects the god-given authority of the state, while acknowledging that their ultimate allegiance is to God. [24] [25]
This role was abolished after separation of Church and State was implemented during the French Revolution. In the 21st century, the more senior bishops of the Church of England continue to sit in the House of Lords of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, as representatives of the established church, and are known as Lords Spiritual.
The first full articulation of the Catholic doctrine on the principles of the relationship of the Catholic Church to the state (at the time, the Eastern Roman Empire) is contained in the document Famuli vestrae pietatis, written by Pope Gelasius I to the Emperor, which states that the Church and the state should work together in society, that ...
The Catholic Church holds that the College of Bishops as a group is the successor of the College of Apostles. The Church also holds that uniquely among the apostles, Saint Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, was granted a role of leadership and authority, giving the pope the right to govern the Church together with the bishops. [42]