Anational church is aChristian church associated with a specificethnic group ornation state. The idea was notably discussed during the19th century, during the emergence of modernnationalism.[citation needed]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a draft discussing the question ofchurch and state around 1828 wrote that
John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote about the National Church of Sweden in 1911, interpreting theChurch of Sweden and theChurch of England as national churches of the Swedish and the English peoples, respectively.
The concept of a national church remains alive in the Protestantism of United Kingdom and Scandinavia in particular. While, in a context of England, the national church remains a common denominator for the Church of England, some of the Lutheran "folk churches" of Scandinavia, characterized as national churches in the ethnic sense as opposed to the idea of a state church, emerged in the second half of the 19th century following the lead ofGrundtvig.[2] However, in countries in which the state church (also known as the established church) has the following of the majority of citizens, the state church may also be the national church, and may be declared as such by the government, e.g.Church of Denmark,[3]Church of Greece,[4] andChurch of Iceland.[5]
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Karl Barth denounced as heretical the tendency of "nationalizing" the Christian God, especially in the context of national churches sanctioning warfare against other Christian nations duringWorld War I.[58]
Denmark has declared the Evangelical Lutheran church to be that national church (par. 4 of the Constitution), which corresponds the fact that 91.5% of the population are registered members of this church. This declaration implies that the Danish State does not take a neutral stand in religious matters. Nevertheless, freedom of religion has been incorporated in the Constitution. Nielsen (1992, 77) gives a short description of the position of the minority religious communities in comparison to that of the State Church: The Lutheran established church is a department of the state. Church affairs are government by a central government ministry, and clergy are government employees. The registration of births, deaths and marriages falls under this ministry of church affairs, and normally speaking the local Lutheran pastor is also the official registrar. The other small religious communities, viz. Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists and Jews, have the constitutional status of 'recognised communities of faith'. ... Contrary to the minority religious communities, the Lutheran Church is fully financed by the Danish State.
Both as a state church and as a national church, the Orthodox Church of Greece has a lot in common with Protestant state churches, and even with Catholicism in some countries.
When Iceland obtained home rule in 1874, the new constitution, while granting religious freedom, maintained the Evangelical Lutheran Church as "a national church . . . supported by the State." This was reaffirmed in the 1944 constitution of the new independent Republic of Iceland. Democratic reforms were adopted early in the 20th century that allowed for some independent decision making in parish councils, and let congregations choose their own pastors. Under a 1998 law, the church became largely autonomous, though it is still designated established church, supported by government taxes. At the end of the 19th century, Lutherans who wanted freedom from the state church founded the Evangelical Free Church of Iceland, which now has in excess of 7,000 members. The majority of Icelanders are members of the state church. Almost all children are baptized as Lutheran and more than 90 percent are subsequently confirmed. The Church conducts 75 percent of all marriages and 99 percent of all funerals.
The Armenian Apostolic Church, sometimes referred to as the Gregorian Armenian Church by Western scholars, serves as the national church of the Armenian people.
While this did not restore the Ohrid patriarchate, it did acknowledge the separation between the Orthodox church in Constantinople and the Bulgarian Orthodox church, which was now free to develop as the Bulgarian national church.
Simultaneously the church tax, ministers being public servants, and the status of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark as the national church indicate that the state lends its support to the church.
Denominationally Estonia is Lutheran. During the time of national independence (1918-1940), 80% of the population belonged to the Lutheran National Church, about 17% were Orthodox Christians and the rest belonged to Free Churches.
Her findings show that the development of the national church of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which began in the fourth century and made Christianity the state religion of Ethiopia, was also a major contributor to national development in the fields of independence, social progress, national unity and empowerment, literary development, arts, architecture, music, publication, and declaration of a national language and leadership, both spiritually and military.
Religion is important to the Faroese and 84% of the population belongs to the established national church in the islands, the Evangelical—Lutheran Foroya Kirkja, which has 61 churches in the Faroes and three out of every four marriages are held in one.
One of Finland's national churches is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Finnish: Suomen Evankelis—luterilainen—kirkko), or simply the Church of Finland.
The Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) is the Eastern Orthodox Christian body that serves as the national church of the Caucasian country of Georgia. The great majority of Georgians are members of the church.
The creation of a national church of Greece, which the patriarch reluctantly recognized in 1850, set a pattern for other emerging Balkan states to form national churches independent of Constantinople.
The National Church of Iceland, formally called the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, is the state religion, and the president of Iceland is its supreme authority.
The creation of a national Church was also central to building national identity, with the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC) established in 1967, much to the outrage of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The State shall support all religious communities including the Church of Norway on an equal footing, but the Church of Norway shall 'remain the people's Church and is as such supported by the State', thereby upholding its function as a national Church.
Although nominally a national church, the Russian Orthodox Church developed from a defensive, nativist institution to the ideological foundation of an imperial idea.
He also had the support of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which as a national church long identified with the national destiny and aspirations of the Serbian people was naturally inclined to identify itself with the movement that had the backing of the king and the Servian-dominated government-in-exile.
The Church of Sweden could be characterised as 'national church' or 'folk church', but not as 'state church', because the independence of the church was expressed by the establishment of a Church Assembly in 1863.
A second important cultural feature of the Tuvaluan nation is the centrality of the national church, the Ekalesia o Tuvalu, or Church of Tuvalu, in which up to 97 percent of the population claims membership.
For this reason the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the true democratic national church of the Ukrainian nation.
Having, in my last, arrive at the great points which I wished to establish—the apostolicity, independence, and authority of the Church of England; and that she is necessarily the National Church, because Christianity is the National Religion.
In October 1929, the Established Church and the United Free Church were united to form the national Church of Scotland.
The Coptic Orthodox Church is the historic, and national, church of Egypt and is deeply tied to a monastic tradition of spiritual growth and preparation for ministry of monks and nuns, a tradition that continues to thrive.
The Chaldean Church is located primarily in Iraq and functions in many ways like a national Orthodox Church.
The Maronite Church is a national church. Its creed is attachment to Lebanon and its independence. The founding ethos of the Maronites is their migration from the Syrian plains to the freedom and "purity" of their home in Mount Lebanon.
