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CANON LAW is the body of rules and regulations governing a church. Canon law is not the same as doctrine; rather, the laws are attempts to apply doctrine to the organization and life of a church. Canon law is made by the church and does not involve civil laws that may apply to a church. ROMAN CATHOLIC CANON LAW The body of laws and constitutional principles of the Roman Catholic Church constitutes the canon law of that church. While the term “canon law” can encompass the laws of the many regional jurisdictions within the church, it is commonly applied to the universal laws of the church, especially those contained in its official juridical compilation, the Code of Canon Law. Etymologically considered, “canon” derives from a Greek word meaning “rule” or “norm.” It long has been used in the church to signify the “rule of faith” and the “norm of Christian life”, and it was adopted by the early councils of the church for the laws (“canons”) they issued. From that time canon law has come to mean sacred or ecclesiastical law as differentiated from the imperial law or “nomos”—the civil law of the Roman Empire and other states. Church law appears to be like the law of civil society, sharing the forms and borrowing the legal techniques of the latter; in reality, however, the two are essentially different. Civil law is a code for the regulation of external social behavior and the maintenance of personal rights; church law is a complex of regulations governing not only the external but also the internal religious behavior of the church's members. More basically, whereas the force and authority of civil law come from within the community—from the members themselves or from a ruler—the force and authority of church law comes not from its membership or leaders but from Christ, who is at once within and above the community. Like civil society, the church is an institution composed of men; it has human leaders and manmade laws. But these leaders must be submissive to the guidance of Christ and his Holy Spirit if the laws they proclaim are to be authentically Christian. To be authentic, church law must conform to the will of Christ as it is expressed in Holy Scripture and as it is experienced in the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. It must have as its objective not mere social order but the education of the members of the church to a life more nearly like that of their Master. In the Catholic Church the study of canon law has the status of an academic discipline for which a comprehensive curriculum is prescribed and degrees are granted. Canon law is both a historical and a practical science, looking to the legal traditions of past centuries, the present governing of the church, and the continuing development of its legal structure. An understanding of canon law, then, should include not only a knowledge of the current structure of the Code of Canon Law but an awareness of its history and a concern for its future. The Past: The History of Canon Law. The New Testament gives evidence, especially in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, that even in the earliest years of the Christian era laws and internal organization, at least of a rudimentary sort, were part of the life of the church. It was, though, several centuries before anything resembling what today we call canon law could be recognized. The development of the church's law depended on the prior development of ecclesiastical institutions; it was only after the flowering of the monarchical episcopate (in which each local church was governed by its own bishop), after the growth of interdependence of the individual churches one upon the other, and after the ascendancy of the major patriarchal sees (those claiming foundation by one of the Apostles) that the beginnings of a universal canon law can be discerned. Early Canonical Collections. As the centers of the Christian church began to be more closely tied, councils—at first regional but becoming general or ecumenical after the accession of Emperor Constantine—were held by the bishops. From these councils, canons, or rules of worship and principles for the organization of Christian life, emanated and spread throughout the Christian world. Side by side with the authentic canons of the councils were circulated collections of apocryphal canons, often claiming authorship by the Apostles themselves. Popularly accepted as genuine, these pseudo-apostolic collections (Didache, Didascalia apostolorum, Canones apostolorum, Constitutiones apostolorum, and Traditio apostolica sancti Hippolyti) helped to establish a degree of organizational and juridical uniformity in the early church. In the late 5th century Pope Gelasius I (reigned 492–496) set about gathering the early canons and collections into an official compilation of laws, and assigned the work to Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk living at Rome. Dionysius gathered the canons of local synods and the general councils, and added certain of the “apostolic” canons; thus, he produced the first noteworthy collection of canon law in the western church. Editions of this Dionysiana, as the collection was called, were later sent from Rome to other parts of the church and so served as the foundation for a uniform canonical development in the West. Frankish Influence. Uniform development was temporarily thwarted during the 6th and 7th centuries. The barbarian invasions and the disintegration of the western Roman Empire were followed by a period of anarchy and decadence. Out of these conditions arose national kingdoms governed by their own legal codes, which were based on tribal customs. The church, accustomed to the structure and unity of the Roman legal system, was then faced with the need of adapting itself to the legal codes of these peoples and the local pecularities of the young nations they had founded. Centralization of government and uniformity of laws was, therefore, postponed, and local questions were settled by the decrees of regional synods. A further complication was introduced into ecclesiastical law when the Irish missionary monks appeared on the continent with their Libri paenitentiales. This detailed listing of crimes, sins, and penances, which was based on the tribal laws of their homeland, was imposed on their converts. These “penitentials” were rapidly integrated into local laws. Out of this confusion, however, emerged a renewed, though temporary, supremacy of the pope and a strengthened centralization of church authority. The papal cause was championed by Pepin the Short, king of the Franks (reigned 741–768). Requesting a rescript on canon law from Pope Zacharias in 747, Pepin engaged in strengthening the organization of the church. Some time between 754 and 756 he gave the pope the lands which became the Papal States, thereby establishing the temporal power of the papacy and setting the stage for its later claims of wide temporal jurisdiction. About this time, also, a document called the Donation of Constantine appeared. It purported to show that on his departure from Rome for the East, Constantine had conferred on Pope Sylvester I (reigned 314–335) far-reaching temporal rights over the western part of the Roman Empire. Though a forgery, this document was used for many years to bolster papal claims to temporal jurisdiction. After Pepin, Charlemagne (reigned 768–814) continued the work of reform; he restored ecclesiastical organization as a whole throughout his kingdom, reduced the divergent tendencies and institutions of canon law, and again brought into a place of prominence the general collections of law. In 774, Pope Adrian I gave him a code of law—a version of the Dionysian collection supplemented by later papal legislation—to serve as a basis for his reform of the Frankish church. Although the work of Charlemagne and the canonists of his time enhanced the prestige of canonical tradition and prevented the dissolution of the Latin Church into a multitude of autonomous local churches, the years following his death did not fulfill the promise of his reign. Under his successors his kingdom was split, and the church, though better organized than before, fell prey to secular rulers who abused the privileges of the clergy, interfered with the power of the bishops, and confiscated ecclesiastical property. A new collection of decretals conveniently appeared containing legislation against just such abuses. The collection was attributed to Isidorus Mercator, and its decretals were said to date from Pope St. Clement and other early bishops of Rome. Now known as the “false” or “pseudo-Isidorian” Decretals, the collection was compiled by well-intentioned churchmen of the day partly from authentic decretals of an earlier day and partly from decretals of their own fabrication. Gaining acceptance as authentic, the false decretals were used to reinforce episcopal power and to deter the seizure of church property. Since they advocated appeal to Rome for the settlement of controversies, they served to strengthen papal jurisdictional claims. That jurisdiction, however, was once again being weakened by the Roman aristocracy's control over the papacy during the 9th century and by the Germanic emperors' interference with church affairs during the 10th and 11th centuries. More than this, the feudal culture of the day, with its multiplicity of political subdivisions, its predilection for “private” churches, and its attempts at lay dominance of the clergy, minimized the central authority of Rome. This decline of papal authority was accompanied by a decline in canon law as well. Thus any contribution to canonical progress during those times was made by individual compilers of new collections. The most significant of these collections, and one prophetic of the coming of a better age of canonical activity, was the Decretum of Burchard, the reformminded bishop of Worms (died 1025). His was the most complete and systematic collection yet produced and served as the groundwork for the later great collections of Ivo of Chartres and Gratian. Gregorian Reform. The reform of the abuses of this period (lay investiture and simony, for example) and the return to a strong central authority began in the middle of the 11th century and reached its peak in the reign of Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085). To restore the authentic sources of law and strengthen the measures of Gregory's reform, canonists searched out documents and compiled collections of texts (the most notable collection being the Dictatus papae). These collections strengthened the authority of the Roman See by recognizing the pope as the primary and supreme source of ecclesiastical laws with power over all members of the church. Furthermore, by virtue of a kind of papal theocracy, secular rulers were held to be subject to the pope, even in temporal matters. Although these claims, backed by the arguments of the papal canonists, continued for several centuries and reached their highwater mark in Unam sanctam (1302), the bull promulgated by the canonist-pope Boniface VIII, a moderating influence entered canonical literature even at this time. Ivo, bishop of Chartres (Yves de Chartres; 1040?–1116), who accepted the principle of papal primacy in the church but nonetheless respected the rights of secular rulers, sought to restore peace between church and state. Zealous for reform, he was careful to temper the rigor of the law with mercy and charity. Moreover, he tried to update the study of canon law by providing rules for the historical and rational interpretation of its sources. Like the Decretum of Burchard (from which he borrowed extensively), the work of Ivo signaled the coming of a new era in the history of canon law. Gratian and the Classical Period of Canon Law. The new era began in the mid-12th century with the work of Gratian. A monk, he was educated in Bologna, which at that time was the greatest center of legal learning in Europe. It boasted a school of law where, under its founder Irnerius, the newly revived legislation of Justinian—the Corpus Juris Civilis—was studied and commented upon. In this setting Gratian applied to the complex and disorganized canon law of his time the form and order of Justinian's Roman law. He adopted a rational method for the selection and interpretation of legal texts similar to the dialectical method Peter Abelard had earlier used in his landmark theological treatise Sic et non. Setting out to compile a summa of canon law, Gratian gathered all the available legislation of the past from the Sacred Scripture, the writings of the Fathers, and the decrees of councils. First, he discarded apocryphal texts and laws narrowly regional or superseded by later legislation and then added to what remained the most recent papal and conciliar decrees. Finally, he tried to reconcile the often divergent texts into a coherent unity. Gratian's work was published about the year 1140 and was titled Concordantia discordantium canonum (Concordance of Discordant Canons), but it soon came to be called by the shorter and more familiar name Decretum Gratiani (Decree of Gratian). Though the Decretum was never made an official or authentic source book of ecclesistical law by the church, it did become the handbook of the Roman Curia and the textbook of canon law in the great university centers of Europe. Understandably, the scope of such a work, undertaken by one man alone, made textual discrepancies and verbal obscurities inevitable. Very soon, commentators on the Decretum appeared who were called “decretists.” Some of these were Gratian's own pupils—Paucapalea and Rolando Bandinelli (later Pope Alexander III; reigned 1159–1181). Others—Huguccio (died 1210) and Juan de Torquemada (1388–1468)—came years and centuries after him. The decretists wrote extensively on Gratian's work, trying to resolve its difficult passages and to answer the numerous questions its publication had raised. Their efforts clarified many controverted points, but some of the issues were so involved as to require authoritative answers from the papacy itself. Papal decretals multiplied, accordingly, in the years following Gratian, and these, like his Decretum, were in their turn commented on by another group of canonists—the “decretalists.” Among these were Raymond of Peñafort (c. 1180–1276), Sinibaldus Fieschi (Pope Innocent IV), and Nicolas de Tudeschis (1389–1446). The plethora of papal decretals required collection and order. During the 13th and early 14th centuries three major collections were made by the popes: the Decretals of Gregory IX in 1234; the Liber sextus of Boniface VIII in 1298; and the Constitutions of Clement V, promulgated by John XXII in 1317. These official collections, together with two unofficial collections published in 1500 by Jean Chappuis (the Extravagantes of John XXII and the Extravagantes communes;“extravagantes” means decretals circulating outside official collections), were added to the Decretum of Gratian to form the Corpus Iuris Canonici. Conciliarism. During the 13th and 14th centuries canonists were called on to choose sides in a conflict whose repercussions would be felt for centuries in the church—the seemingly perennial question of papal jurisdiction. As might be expected, papal claims of temporal authority created tension between the church and secular rulers. These claims also engendered opposition within the church itself; men like Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, and John Wycliffe opposed them. Likewise, papal claims to total authority within the church led to an everincreasing centralization of power and consequent strained relations with local churches. The practice of reservation of local ecclesiastical judicial and administrative matters to the pope—a practice often enough made necessary by the less than ideal conduct of some local clergy—similarly created conflicts between the universal papal laws and local rules and customs. Those who wished to mitigate the exercise of papal power found gratification in the Western schism that divided the church from 1378 to 1417. During this disastrous period, when two and sometimes three claimants to the papal throne split the church into factions and no resolution of the division appeared likely, the theory known as conciliarism gained fairly wide acceptance in some areas of the church. Many theologians and canonists (notably Jean Gerson and Pierre D'Ailly) as well as bishops and cardinals were prepared to accept the thesis that only a general council could end the disunity, and that indeed such a council would be legislative authority superior to the pope. Other canonists, equally renowned—Baldus de Ubaldis and Juan de Torquemada, to name two—argued against the conciliar theory and supported papal authority. For a time it appeared that the views of the conciliarists were destined to prevail. But the general council of Constance (1414–1417) ended the schism by deposing two of the papal contenders, accepting the resignation of the third, and electing one of its own members to reign as Pope Martin V (1417–1431). Though Martin's actions after the Council of Constance are the subject of some dispute, it appears that, once elected, he repudiated the conciliarist views of his electors and reaffirmed the supremacy of pope over council. The Reformation and the Council of Trent. One century to the year after the election of Martin V ended the schism, a greater rupture of the unity of western Christianity occurred when Martin Luther and the reformers rejected, among other things, the hierarchical-papal structure of the church. Along with that structure, Luther rejected the canon law that served as its legal justification. The effect of Luther's attack on canon law, though not what he might have hoped for, was considerable in that it occasioned the calling of the Council of Trent. For the next four centuries this great council's decision would regulate the life, structure, and law of the Catholic Church. From the Roman Curia to the smallest parish community, Catholic life was restructured and renewed according to the spirit and laws of Trent, and as the church's life was renewed, so too was its law. The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent became, with the Corpus Iuris Canonici, the law of the church. Its laws on marriage, priestly and religious life, and the government of diocess supplemented and in many cases supplanted the old law. The old law was not neglected (though persistent requests for its complete restructuring were not answered). Pope Pius IV (reigned 1559–1565) appointed a commission to correct and revise the Corpus Iuris Canonici, and a new edition was published by the authority of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. For a time following the council there was a lessening of canonical activity when Pius IV forbade the writing of commentaries on Trent's decrees. Official interpretations only were to be allowed, and a committee of cardinals was given the task. By the end of the 17th century, however, this ruling had been allowed to lapse; from that time to the present, hundreds of commentaries have enriched the literature of canon law. Even though Trent, by way of answer to the reformers, anchored the church more securely than ever in the papacy, theories aimed at limiting papal power still continued to circulate. In 17th century France the movement held that the pope is limited by the general council in matters of spiritual government, by the episcopate in matters of faith, and by special “Gallican privileges” on matters relating to the French church. Predictably, this movement was condemned by Pope Alexander VIII in 1690, and its theories lived on in Febronianism in Germany and Josephinism in Austria during the last half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries until the First Vatican Council (1869–1870). The more publicized definition of papal infallibility in matters of faith and morals overshadowed a Vatican I definition of at least equal importance. The council defined that the Roman pontiff has full, supreme, ordinary, and universal power throughout the entire church, in all its parts, and over all its members, bishops as well as laymen. The papal primacy was once again vindicated. To balance such a strong affirmation of Roman authority the council had intended to make statements on the role of bishops in the church and on their relationship with the pope. The premature closing of the council occasioned by the fall of Rome to Garibaldi's army precluded the discussion of this relationship, and a balanced answer to the perennial question of papal power would have to await the Second Vatican Council nearly a century later. Thirty-four years after the close of the First Vatican Council, Pope Pius X (reigned 1903–1914) announced that it was his intention to revise canon law in structure as well as content. His revision was the first official collection since the promulgation of the Constitutions of Clement V nearly 600 years before. It was also the answer to centuries of requests for a general revision and modernization of the law. Piux X decreed that the Corpus Iuris Canonici should be replaced by a modern code of law patterned after the civil codes adopted in many European countries following the publication of the Napoleonic Code in the early years of the 19th century. A commission of cardinals and experts was set up under the presidency of Pietro Cardinal Gasparri to carry out the actual labor of codification. Pius X died before the completion of the new Codex Iuris Canonici, and his successor Pope Benedict XV promulgated it on May 27, 1917. It became effective on May 19, 1918. The Code of Canon Law (1918). The Code of Canon Law was composed of 2,414 concise formulations of law called canons. These were arranged in “books” under five general headings: (1) General Norms (canons 1–86); (2) Persons in the Church (canons 87–725); (3) Sacred Matters (canons 726–1551); (4) Legal Procedures (canons 1552–2194); and (5) Crimes and Penalties (canons 2195–2414). After its promulgation in 1918, the Code of Canon Law served a useful purpose in the organization of local churches throughout the world with a high degree of uniformity. Lay people, clergy, and hierarchy were organized into pyramidlike structures presided over by local bishops. The religious could be either clerical or lay persons. The many resulting worldwide diocesan structures were subordinate in various ways to the Roman Curia, which was made up of huge administrative offices accountable to the pope. As the years passed, there was growing consciousness of the need for greater participation of the laity in church matters as well as for more autonomy in the local churches. These notions grew from new concepts of the purposes of a church. The issues were restudied in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and at its close it became apparent that a revision of canon law had become necessary. Vatican Council II and Revision of the Code. Following Vatican Council II, the final phase of work on the new canon law code began when the first synod of bishops met in 1967. A commission of cardinals and experts had been named by Pope John XXIII in 1963 to revise the code in the light of Vatican Council II, then in progress. After John's death, Pope Paul VI reorganized the commission somewhat and instructed it to consciously direct the code to the theological mission and life of the church. The commission must illustrate how authority is to serve in leading the people of God to salvation. Rigorism and legalism must be avoided, and the rights of all people must be protected. In 1967 the bishops approved guiding principles for revising the code and established its character. The laws should be more than a broad set of moral principles. They should be juridical in nature and directed to the external government of individuals and society. They should be pastoral in spirit and reflect local conditions in their directives. They should demonstrate the authority necessary for the local bishop in his work, while respect for human rights should remain intact. In keeping with the teachings of Vatican Council II concerning the local church, laws should be pertinent to specific territories when indicated. Penalties should be fewer; and in line with this principle, the laws should reflect the church's newer understanding of itself as a communion of faithful called to membership in a spiritual organism. The New Code of Canon Law (1983). After 14 years the commission decided that its work was completed and presented the revised code to Pope John Paul II for approval. The new Code of Canon Law was promulgated on Jan. 25, 1983, and became effective on Nov. 27, 1983. The new code differs noticeably from that of 1918. It is considerably briefer—1,752 canons, compared with 2,414 in the old law. Greater leeway is allowed for observing conditions in the individual dioceses and institutes. Many laws in the code are concerned with new entities and structures, and some canons contain theological statements rather than strict laws. The structure of the new code is different from that of the old one. Seven new sections replace the five “books” of the 1918 code: General Norms, People of God, Teaching Office, Sanctifying Office, Temporal Goods of the Church, Ecclesiastical Sanctions, and Canonical Procedures. Canonical penalties are noticeably fewer. The new Code of Canon Law reflects contemporary theological thinking in the church. It represents the thought pattern requested by Pope Paul VI when he directed the commission to undertake its task. Instead of likening church structure to that of a monarchy, the commission was to articulate the conciliar concept of the church as a communion of people bound together in the Lord and joined by a communion of faith and loyalty to the church. Gone are many of the monarchical concepts of church structure that were governed largely by direction of the people involved. Ministry in the priesthood is still restricted to properly trained men, but many of the clerical functions have been opened to the laity. Lay people now may staff parishes and become closely involved in Christian formation, together with parents and other qualified personnel. These changes do not flow from the breakup of former law but from the new church theology, which views the church as a communion of the faithful. In this communion all may share in varying degrees in the newly recognized entity that is the church of Vatican Council II. Notable changes of emphasis have been introduced in the preparation of the faithful for the reception of the sacraments. Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist are seen as integral elements in the ceremonies for initiation of adults. Infant baptism has been retained, but greater preparation of the parents and godparents is required. Confession is seen as the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which the repentant soul is welcomed by a forgiving God. Penance services are encouraged, but individual confession and absolution remain the practice unless necessity dictates otherwise. The sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick points to God, the loving Father, giving assistance, sometimes physical as well as spiritual, to one in serious physical distress. This sacrament, as well as that of Reconciliation, is administered by the priest to members of the Christian community in physical and spiritual need. A communal participation in these sacraments is praiseworthy when circumstances warrant or permit. Women have been afforded an enhanced status in the church by recent changes and by the code, but they remain ineligible for ordination. Through Baptism, the people of God share a certain equality. As such, all are called to assist in spreading the Gospel and to engage in pastoral activities. The new code is a praiseworthy monument to the bishops and scholars who produced it. It incorporates the old law in a presentation impregnated with the spirit and insights of Vatican Council II, as well as the theological and juridical insights of the late 20th century. It has strengthened the diocesan structure of the church, with the local bishop as pastor and shepherd in close unity with the pope. The ecclesiastical atmosphere in 1983 was auspicious for the new code and its acceptance by all ranks in the church. Moreover, experience with the old law during the previous 65 years emphasized that no code of law is perfect. In due course another revision will be necessary. The new Code of Canon Law has taught that progress is achieved through periodic revisions. Romaeus O'Brien, O. Carm. Catholic University of America (Ret.) Canonist, Diocese of Phoenix, Ariz. CANON LAW IN THE EASTERN CHURCHES The canon law of the Eastern churches is primarily derived from pseudoapostolic writings, the writings of Church Fathers, and the decrees of ecumenical and local councils. From the earliest times many works attributed to the apostles enjoyed the force of law; only one, however, The 85 Canons of the Holy Apostles, has been fully accepted by the Eastern churches. In the 4th century laws began to be properly promulgated by the ecumenical councils. In addition to the canons issued directly by them, the norms of local synods and councils gained universal authority when they were cited at the ecumenical councils; and, by approving the writings of the Church Fathers, the ecumenical councils imparted the status of norms to these as well. Subsidiary sources of Eastern legislation include the writings of Eastern patriarchs, the canons promulgated by the standing episcopal conference in Constantinople, and the liturgical and penitential books, which list the exact laws for worship, fast and abstinence, observation of holy days, and penances. Custom, another source of law, was applied as a norm as early as the Council of Nicaea (325). The interpretations of unclear laws by prominent canonists have also attained a quasi-legal status. Because of the symbiosis of church and state in the Byzantine Empire, many ecclesiastical laws were formulated by the emperors who frequently organized them into collections. The most famous imperial collection was Justinian the Great's (483–565) Corpus Iuris Civilis. In addition, systematized laws or opinions arranged according to topics were issued in collections. Among these were Collection of Fifty Chapters, Synopsis of Canons, Nomocanon (50 chapters), and Nomocanon of John the Faster. Nomocanons list the civil and church laws dealing with the same problem side by side. St. Sava (Rastko; 1174–1235) translated a selection of laws from the nomocanon ascribed to Photius into Church Slavonic. Called the Kormchaja Kniga (Book of the Rudder), this became the most prominent collection of canon law in use in the Slavonic Orthodox churches. The Syntagma of Canons, arranged by Rhalli and Potli (1852–1859), is the most thorough collection of Byzantine church laws, but until officially accepted by pan-Orthodox agreement, it cannot have the force of universal law for all Orthodox churches. The canon law in force for Eastern Catholics is largely based on the Latin rite code. The decree on Eastern Catholic churches promulgated by the Second Vatican Council in Nov. 1964 has, however, prompted the undertaking of a totally new codification. George A. Maloney, S. J. Fordham University CANON LAW IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES Repudiation of the traditional canon law was characteristic of the earliest stage of the Reformation. For example, Martin Luther burned the Corpus Iuris on Dec. 10, 1520, along with the papal bull that excommunicated him. But as soon as the Lutheran and Calvinist churches came to rely on state support they developed codes of canon law. Other Protestant churches, not supported by the state—that is, the Nonconformist or Independent churches—adopted laws or rules for their internal regulation. Some of these codes were known as books of discipline. The Church of England retained many of the preReformation canons, though legislation for the church was in the hands of the king and Parliament. At the Convocation of Canterbury in 1604 and that of York in 1606, 141 canons were adopted. At present, new canons may be authorized by the two convocations, with royal assent, or by Parliament. Other churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States, devised their own canons, apart from those of the mother Church of England. Equally independent is the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian. It recognizes none of the preReformation canons but only those authorized by a national council. Laws set up by the council require approval by Parliament. See also GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN Ireland—Religion (The Churches in Britain); PRESBYTERianism; and articles on other churches. Frederick C. Grant Union Theological Seminary