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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
There is a real risk that, without a realistic re-appraisal of its position, a national-minority Church ends up with the worst of all worlds – with neither the recognition and influence appropriate to its national status nor the freedom of action and initiative indispensable for a minority body.
(David Wright)THE DECLINE OF NATIONAL CHURCHES
The appearance of national churches is largely a Reformation phenomenon made possible by the political and religious fragmentation of Europe. The rise of nation states and the emergence of churches organised within their territorial bounds created the conditions under which a church could be a marker of national identity in modern times. Although the partnership of church and state was inherited from the Middle Ages when religious expression could also be given to regional identity, after the Reformation it was more forcibly translated into terms reflecting the particular identity of each nation. This was true especially of the Lutheran churches in Germany and Scandinavia, the Church of England, and the Reformed churches in Switzerland, the Low Countries and Scotland. Catholicism could also become an expression of national identity in countries such as France and Spain. Largely for this reason, John Locke refused to extend religious toleration to Catholics since it was assumed that their religious identity implied a political loyalty to a foreign power.
The populations of Europe are still today mostly conscious of the church as a national institution.
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