State and Nation; Church, Mosque and Synagogue. The debate that won’t go away

Abstract

Church and State – although within a couple of decades this concept seemed to be out of date and pushed somewhere in between typology and taxonomy – it came back suddenly to the current discourse in numerous publications, articles and books clarifying with due weight various models of the co-existence of Church and State. The debate relates to the Christian culture, being on the way out in the secular Europe, and its place in self-reflection and self-understanding by nations and countries of the Old Continent. The subject of an animated discussion was a possible reference to „the Christian roots” as a part of the cultural heritage of the EU in the preamble of its the would-have-been constitution. At present, similar issues such as displaying crucifixes in public schools are debated in individual countries – it was decided i.a. by the German Federal Constitutional Court, and is discussed by lawyers in other countries. The above issue was also the subject of the decision held by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights after the judgment as of November 2009 in case Lautsi v. Italy regarding the complaint of Soile Lautsi