Religion Law Quiz #17 (Ecclesiastical Determinations and Civil Courts)

True or False: A church’s determination regarding an ecclesiastical matter will be binding on a civil court. 

 

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Answer: True.  Ecclesiastical matters include doctrines, creeds, forms of worship, church laws and regulations, membership in the church, church discipline, excommunication/expulsion from the church, appointment/removal of a pastor; employment (hiring, firing and retention of church employees performing ecclesiastical functions), etc.  See e.g., B.B. v. Methodist Church of Shelbina, Missouri, 541 S.W.3d 644, 655 (Mo.App. E.D. 2017); Heartland Presbytery v. Gashland Presbyterian Church, 364 S.W.3d 575, 586 (Mo.App. W.D. 2012); Weaver v. African Methodist Episcopal Church, Inc., 54 S.W.3d 575, 580 (Mo.App. W.D. 2001); Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery Ass'n v. Levy, 923 S.W.2d 439, 442–43 (Mo.App. E.D. 1996); see also Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the U.S. and Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 708–11, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 2380–88, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976).  “The United States Supreme Court has recognized that when a church renders a decision on a purely ecclesiastical matter, ‘the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them.’”  Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery Ass'n v. Levy, 923 S.W.2d 439, 442 (Mo.App. E.D. 1996) (citing Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 725, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 2387–88, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976)); see also Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 606–09, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 3026–28, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979).

 

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