Review article
The Historical Development of the Relation Between the Church and the State in Great Britain: Key Milestones and Metamorphoses of the "State Church" in a Multicultural Society
Hrvoje Špehar
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author discusses historical development of the relation between the Church and the State in Great Britain from the separation from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 to contemporary changes. In accordance with the premises of historical institutionalism, the paper tries to identify milestones in the relation between the Church and the State which have decisively shaped the creation of the contemporary British model of the relation between the two. Since the British model has often been simplified to the model of the “State Church” in different overviews of the relation between the Church and the State in Europe, the paper aims to present some of the key characteristics of regulation of the Church-State relation and social changes which result in modifications to the ideal type of the “State Church”. In this respect, it is noteworthy to examine the debate on the multicultural society in Great Britain, as well as possibilities and limitations of the numerous theories of multiculturalism. Bearing in mind the fact that the British model of the relation between the Church and the State stands representative for similar models found in other Scandinavian countries, the application of this research can be extended to the European level in the process of finding a common approach to the dialogue with different Churches, religious communities and communities of atheistic and agnostic beliefs.
Keywords
Great Britain; Church and State; State Church; multiculturalism
Hrčak ID:
64022
URI
Publication date:
31.1.2011.
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