\"De facto\" establishment or non?

"De facto" establishment or non? A focus on the registration of religious communities and the exercise of religious autonomy.
1.Introduction
If scholarly research is to be performed with an emphasize on the establishment of religions. Many possible aspects of establishment could be studied. Juridical provisions to determine a privileged position of a specific religion can be found in constitutions or legal acts, arranging the free exercise of religion and belief. Researchers often use theories to classify the differing approaches in church state relations. Those theories take into account the wording and legal scope of the constitutional provisions on church and state relations and the philosophical intention varying for example from categories like the secular state, a neutral state or a state with an established church. In this paper I would like to try to apply a whole different methodology to study the possible privileged position of religions and the influence that has on the free exercise of religion and belief. My main inspirational source for this methodology came from a working document that I recently read. This paper was written with the aim to publish the results of a research financed by the European Marie Curie fellowship intended to enquire about religious freedom in countries with a strong majority religion formed by the Orthodox churches. In the following abstract I intend to explain the chosen methodology. Because of this method a strong emphasis will be on the exercise of juridical autonomy of religious communities and the registration of religions that is required from the national governments. Taking into account the national legal provisions and other circumstances will be a helpful instrument to see if there is a "de facto" establishment. This is a different form of establishment than a purely normative approach of privileged religions in constitutional legal frameworks. It is a methodology where a general applicable theory on church and state relation for a nation state doesn't have an added value. Even in what could be described as a secular state from a constitutional point of view, there could be enough room to define a privileged position of a majority religion. The juridical autonomy of a religious community, regardless if it is a minority or a majority religion in a nation state, as it is arranged in legal acts for registration, has to be guaranteed to a certain point in order to grant the free exercise of religion and belief.
Abstract
There is no general theory on church and state relations that is to be studied here but the study of the "de facto" establishment of religions asks for a focus on the registration of religions and the autonomy of communities exercising their religion or belief in freedom. In order to be able to describe the possible privileged position of a religion or an establishment it is useful to mention several circumstances that could limit the right to freedom of religion and belief for any minority religion. In this paper I will work with three circumstances that could severely limit the free exercise. For the applied methodology, this means that only after answering the question if one of the three mentioned circumstances is occurring in a nation state, there will be more clarity on the position of a religion. The first special case is a situation when there is a majority religion that is exempted from the duty to register for a legal status as religious community because of religious, cultural or legal circumstances. A second possible limitation that could limit free exercise is the occurrence of unreasonable demands related to the duty to register as a religious community as required by a government authority. These demands could be requirements related to the quantity of the religious community, the ability to proof the communities existence for a reasonable number of years before asking for official registration, demands in the field of religious worship, the use of places of worship etc. The third limitation is the "de facto" establishment of a national religion that is part of tradition and heritage of a nation by allowing a privileged position with regards to financial support, tax exemptions, subsidies and the training and education of ministers and believers.



E. Fokas, "Pluralism and religious freedom in majority Orthodox contexts", Eliamep, working paper nr. 49/2014.
Ibidem, p 21.