The article deals with the ideological and political aspects of the relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The Russian imperial idea was strongly influenced by the idea of Orthodox...

The church tax revenue in 2022 was estimated at 13 billion euros. This is an increase of around 300 million euros compared to 2021. The Catholic Church accounted for around 6.8 billion euros in 2022, and the Protestant Church around 6.2 billion euros. However, further increases are likely to be...

Over the past decade, technology has greatly impacted our lives. Smartphones, tablets, and laptops have become an integral part of our daily lives. While it can be hard to keep up with world events, church technology can provide helpful tools for ministry. As churches adapt to this new way, they...

We analyze the effect of state visits by the Catholic pope on human rights in the host country to understand how a small theocracy like the Vatican can exert disproportionate political influence in international politics. Our theoretical model of the strategic interaction between the Catholic...

Kirchliche Arbeitgeber diskriminieren ihre Beschäftigten und Bewerber nach Merkmalen, nach denen andere Arbeitsgeber es nicht dürfen und meist auch nicht mehr wollen. Denn die Kirchen schaden sich damit vor allem selbst, während die Diskriminierten inzwischen anderswo willkommen sind und gute...

From their inception African Indigenous churches accepted the parallel roles of male and female in leadership. This may have been due to the fact that before the advent of Christianity, women were active participants in the traditional religions. Hence, when Christianity came along, though their...

Ethical relativism is the thesis that moral judgments are comparative to culture and individual preferences. It claims that there is no universal morality as pointed out by moral universalism/absolutism. Moral universalism is the meta-ethical position that ethics or morality applies universally...

Ethical relativism is the thesis that moral judgments are comparative to culture and individual preferences. It claims that there is no universal morality as pointed out by moral universalism/absolutism. Moral universalism is the meta-ethical position that ethics or morality applies universally...

A large gap in our Tax Code allows certain religious organizations to amass extraordinary riches while preying on the faithful. Their conduct is causing damage to the church as an institution and is inconsistent with the purpose of tax exemptions—to provide a public good. This Essay proposes...

In this policy brief, Robert C. Blitt explores how the Kremlin continues to deepen its reliance on the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (ROC) as a lever of soft power in Russian foreign policy. Constitutional amendments ratified in July 2020 suggest that this church-state partnership...

Although the antecedents to modern-day taxation systems are embedded in the annals of western civilization, tax exemption for churches and charitable organizations, on the other hand, have a long history that dates back to the ancient Egyptian, Persian and Babylonian civilizations. Priests and...

This paper discusses tax laws and federal court decisions relating to the taxation or exemption of religious non-profit organizations. In a democracy characterized by separation of church and state, what role does the federal government play in regulating the activities and financial...

The establishment of Christianity in the late- and post-Roman world caused an economic as well as a religious revolution, but, while a great deal of attention has been paid to the religious developments of the period, the impact of the establishment of the Church on the economy has attracted...

With increased interest in the concept of leadership, there is a need to examine its various types in terms of scale, necessity, as well as importance. This study thus attempted to measure pastoral administrative leadership with the objective of revealing the necessity and importance of studying...

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the many changes in the present socio-cultural context point to the importance of innovation in churches. A theoretical framework for understanding innovation in churches is presented, featuring 6 key elements. These elements include the cultural context...

Rehabilitating convicted criminals has proven to be very challenging despite its importance for reducing both crime and incarceration rates. This paper provides causal evidence that the local institutions of the neighborhood where individuals return after prison matter. Specifically, we show...

This article argues that how the United Nations conceptualizes legitimacy is not only a matter of legalism or power politics. The UN’s conception of legitimacy also utilizes concepts, language, and symbolism from the religious realm. Understanding the constitutional entanglement between...

Catholic churches in Renaissance Florence supported themselves overwhelmingly from the contributions of wealthy citizens. The sale of private chapels within churches to individuals was a significant source of church funds, and facilitated a church construction boom. Chapel sales offered three...

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world. Organizational innovativeness, a precursor of successful innovations in organizational contexts, is rarely studied in churches. This study of American church attenders (N = 244) found that perceived...

This study exploits the confiscation and auctioning off of Church property that occurred during the French Revolution to assess the role played by transaction costs in delaying the reallocation of property rights in the aftermath of fundamental institutional reform. French districts with a...

Why did substantial parts of Europe abandon the institutionalized churches around 1900? Empirical studies using modern data mostly contradict the traditional view that education was a leading source of the seismic social phenomenon of secularization. We construct a unique panel dataset of...

The chapter analyses how different types of leaders view the Church of Norway’s (CoN) work on the environment and climate issues. Through data taken from interviews with 18 informants representing four segments of Norwegian society – businesses, youth, environmental organisations and the CoN...

Although freedom of religion seems, prima facie, to have little relevance to taxation, church taxes raise many interesting legal questions in relation to this human right. In this contribution, the authors identify potential issues linked to the levying of church taxes when taxpayers are...

We analyze the effect of state visits by the Catholic pope on human rights in the host country to illustrate how a small theocracy like the Vatican can exert significant political influence in international politics. Our theoretical model of the strategic interaction between the Catholic Church...