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Ecclesiastical Law and the Relationship between the Church and the State in the Subject of the General History of Law and the State as a Part of the Legal Education in Socialism and Today

Presentation by Prof. Zrinka Erent-Sunko, PhD

        Legal history has been a part of the foundation of legal education since its very beginnings. With the establishment of the Royal Academy of Science (Regia Scientiarum Academia Zagrabiensis) by the 1776 Mandate, the Faculty of Law (Facultas iuridica) was also established. With the adoption of the expanded document titled Ratio educationis totiusque reo literariae per regnum Hungariae et provincias eidem adnexas, Historia provinciarum europearum, Historia universalis et Collegium novorum publicorum became a mandatory subject already in the following year. The Section commenced its activities in 1780 as Historia universalis et historia statutuum. The legal history from that day to this day has gone a long way and had a strong impact both on legal education and the legal profession.

        The title of the course changed, but the Church as a significant factor of the social life, the relationship between the Church and the State, and canon law, not necessarily a law that has to be lived, were and remained more or less a part of its syllabus. Milivoj Klement Maurović, PhD, one of the professors who taught legal history as a mandatory subject (pursuant to the University Statute of 6 October 1864), giving lectures on Frankish public law and the necessity of knowing it, stated that the “global notability of the Frankish State and its law stems from the fact that the Western Church was in a close connection with it for centuries, which had a significant impact on the development of the supremely important provisions of the law of the Roman Church” (Maurović, General Legal History, lectures printed as a manuscript, 1909, p. 11). From 1946 and the abolition of the study of canon law at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb as something undesirable and unnecessary for socialism until its reinstatement/reintroduction to the study programme of Law in 2019, more than half a decade passed.

       However, the mention of the influence of the Church, at least in the context of spreading literacy and learning, as well as the factors connected with the authority of the Church tribunals and the basic mentions of the sources of canon law remained a quiet – as was the only thing possible under those conditions – part of the study matter, which was studied by freshmen at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb within the General Legal History course. From the end of the 1980s, in the atmosphere of the pre-democratic changes, the subject matter was clothed in another attire, and defined the factors connected with the development of the science of the history of law and the state, influence of the Church, and sources of canon law more clearly, albeit insufficiently. The parts that concern an introduction into the substantive sources of canon law – including papal acts and concordats as a special type of international agreements – should be particularly emphasized, as students show a special interest for them.

       Students can also choose the topic of their undergraduate thesis that may deepen their knowledge of the subject matter, and which would serve as a conclusion of their legal education. The existence of materials connected with the influence of the Church on the society as well as the sources of canon law within the subject of the General History of Law and the State filled a certain gap that still – even with canon law – leaves some room for the deepening of knowledge necessary for the legal profession.

Key words: canon law, ecclesiastical law, sources of ecclesiastical and canon law, legal history, Section for the General History of Law and the State, Faculty of Law in Zagreb