2. REVIEW OF BASIC REGISTRATION TYPES FOR RELIGIOUS ENTITIES IN EUROPE

The situation as to registration in European countries demonstrates an extreme variety having much to do with (1) the historical and cultural backgrounds of the particular countries; (2) the way they confront contemporary tides of globalization including the imminent pluralization of the religious scene; as well as (3) how much and to what extent they are based on rule of law. This variety is related to which body within the government has competence to register, to the procedure of registration, to the variety of registration procedures, and to the rights attained through registration. In this section, these aspects are dealt with only to the extent that they are conducive to creating a short survey of the reach complexity of registration regimes in Europe. For this purpose, we can discern four major groups of countries.

The first group of countries consists of post-communist countries, among which those with an Orthodox tradition prevail, rendering registration very difficult and complicated (Temperman Reference Temperman2011, 254). It is indicative that many cases at the ECtHR concerning the issue of legal status of religious entities arise from this group of countries (see Flere, Ðorđević, and Kirbiš, Reference Flere, Đorđević and Kirbiš2013).

Among these countries, Russia makes an interesting illustrative case. The 1997 Law on the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations introduce a complex quintipartite system. (1) At the bottom are “religious groups,” which need not be registered and may carry out ritual and spiritual activity, but are not legal entities, nor able to acquire property (their members are to furnish the premises themselves). Nevertheless, they need approval from local authorities to operate. (2) After at least 15 years of existence, they may become local “religious organizations,” based on a registration procedure demanding much data of a technical nature (e.g., name of founders, teachings, governance, statutes and their possible change). The competent agency may not register them if it concludes that the entity does not conform to the requirements of the civil legislation. The agency also needs to be annually informed of the continuation of activities after a religious organization is registered. In case of inactivity by a religious organization, the agency may file a suit with the court to find recognition of cessation. Above this local organization, there are (3) regional ones, containing three or more local ones, and (4) federal ones, operating in two or more regions. Finally, the law speaks of (5) traditional religions of Russia, headed by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Law does not explicitly spell out their privileges (Stetson University 2014).

Although this system does not contain many restrictive issues as to religious activities, it is burdensome for religious entities, owing to the high level of bureaucratic demands and control. The heavy, controlling hand of the state is present throughout the law, allowing for much state discretion in intervening. Moreover, this arrangement falls short of allowing equal religious rights for all, since members of religious groups at different levels of legal status are not equal in their legal rights, although the system is, at least officially, open to their advancement.

Russia, being possibly the most complex country in Europe, represents perhaps a somewhat extreme example of the first type of registration regime. Another good example of this group is Romania, a country with a system similar to the Russian one, although containing more restrictive statutory provisions in the pertinent Act on Religious Entities of 2006. The hierarchical classification is tripartite: there are religious groups (minimum three persons for registration, not tax exempt); religious associations (300 persons need to apply for registration), and religions (which need to prove a 0.1% presence in the population, i.e., 19000 persons and 12 years of documented activity). Registration is implemented by a government agency. Religions receive most financial assistance, and a presence in education is allowed (U.S. Department of State 2013a, 2–4).

It should be noted that not all post-communist and Orthodox countries have such complicated and restrictive procedures. Serbia, for example, has never been treated on this issue with the ECtHR. The conditions for registration of religious entities are based on a two-tier system and are not as restrictive as in the case of Russia or Romania. Nevertheless, according to the International Religious Freedom Report, the government has rejected applications for registration from several “nontraditional” religious groups and continues to provide the Serbian Orthodox Church with preferential consideration (U.S. Department of State 2013b, 1).

The second typical group consists of countries with antiquated and syncretic legislation on the issue of registration of religious entities. A good example of this type is Austria, where the Law on the Recognition of Churches from 1874 is still in force. It establishes “recognized religions,” which are provided with privileges like consultative status as to certain educational legislation issues. However, after World War II, a new law was adopted allowing for registration of other religious groups besides the “recognized” ones. This registration does not have a link with the one from the 19th century law, making it impossible for the new groups to attain the status of recognized religion. This has produced a long litigation with the ECtHR, initiated by the Jehovah's Witnesses, which brought about a condemning sentence for the state. Austria has still not satisfied the ECtHR by abolishing the two-tier system that establishes differences in the extent of religious freedom (Jehovas zeugen in Österreich v. Austria 2012).

From such or similar situations, systems with two-tier or multi-tier registration of religious entities frequently emerge. This means that there are entities with different status vis-à-vis the state, particularly as to financial benefits, but also as to social acceptability. In some countries, like Spain or Poland, this is achieved by the state and the privileged church entering a covenant based on the argument that this church is historically rooted in the country. Perhaps the most complicated case within this group is Italy, where, besides agreements with individual entities, concordats with the Catholic Church exist.

All these situations represent certain deviations from the principles of European standard religious freedom. On the other hand, they can all be accommodated to these principles although this demands special effort and additional legislation. The case of Jehovah's zeugen v. Austria well illustrates the problem.

Third, there are countries with a state, i.e., “established” church. These are England and Scotland, Malta, Greece, and Denmark. Although it would pursue from the idea of a state church, that other religious entities would have difficulty establishing and attaining parity with the state church, in practice much of the traditional model of a state church has been done away with. Some of these states have introduced facilitating vehicles for registration, departing from the limitations of a state church model. In the United Kingdom, for example, religious entities easily attain registration in the form of a “religious charity‘ within the regulation on charities (Edge Reference Edge2006, 106–111).

Only in Greece do we still encounter the traditional model of a state church. Recently, a legal provision even enshrined that the establishment of a new religious entity needed the consent of the local Greek Orthodox bishop. Such a provision truly is in line with the idea of unity of state and church and of absolute privilege for the state church. However, this provision has been amended in accordance with ECtHR case law, according to which the bishop's absence of consent may be replaced by approval from the Council of State. Registration of new religious entities in Greece is difficult to achieve, and few international religious groups have spread into Greece. It should be noted that this issue has been somewhat mitigated by the issuing of “house of prayer permits,” through which the state indirectly recognizes a group as a “known religion.” To obtain a permit, a religious group's leader and 50 adult members of the group who live in the area where the house of prayer will be located must submit an application that includes a description of the basic principles and rituals of the group as well as approval from the local urban planning department attesting that the proposed house of prayer meets local regulations. A separate permit is required for each physical place of worship (U.S. Department of State 2013c).

Fourth, there is the French model, rooted in the French historical intention to control religion, and originating from the French Revolution. The 1905 “Law on the Relations between Churches and the State” demands that all religious entities who want to achieve tax-exempt status must register at the regional level as “religious associations.” The crux of the French model is that the state would somehow supervise the area of religion by fragmenting religious entities, particularly the Roman Catholic Church (RCC).

The RCC, in contrast to other groups, was slow to accept this solution. Nevertheless, today 100 Catholic religious associations are registered in France, together with 109 Protestant, 50 Jehovah's Witnesses, 30 Muslim, and 15 Jewish ones (U.S. Department of State 2013d, 3).

The French model is also recognizable in the Turkish Kemalist system, which has even radicalized the secularist tendencies and state control of the French model (Köker 2010, 17). Elsewhere in Europe, however, the influence of the French system seems to have diminished, particularly owing to its inflexibility — that is, if we are not to interpret events in some post-communist Orthodox countries as French inspired, in view of the paternalistic position of the state (Flere, Ðorđević, and Kirbiš 2014).

Finally, there are countries with registration of religious entities as ordinary, non-profit and non-governmental organizations. It could be argued that this type emerged under the influence of the United States pattern. In the immediate period after the fall of communism, Albania and Georgia were examples of this type. While in Georgia the Georgian Orthodox Church has been accorded special status by the 1995 Constitution, in Albania this regime is still in force (U.S. Department of State 2013e). However, Albania is also drafting a new statute, which would contain multi-tier registration and other elements recommended by the Venice Commission (Venice Commission 2007). Thus, it appears that the American system has not found a solid foothold in Europe.

The above described “types” of registration regimes are not exhaustive and intended only to illustrate some of the most obvious differences among registration systems in Europe. These types partly emerged from differences in historical events and the impact of tradition, but also partly from varying patterns in a latent struggle between forces of tradition and the Council of Europe sponsored liberalism in the registration and recognition of religious entities.

With regards to the latter, two recent instances of varied treatment of state recognition for religious entities stand out. They both come from post-communist countries, but they point in opposite directions as to the future of Europe in the area of legal recognition of religious entities.

3. THE SLOVENIAN CASE: PARODY RELIGIONS AS SIGNS OF LIBERALIZATION

Slovenia is historically a predominantly Catholic country. Although, during modern times, the Catholic prevalence in Slovenia has somewhat diminished, Slovenia can hardly be called confessional pluralist, since other religious groups are very small. In 1991 when Slovenia acquired independence from Yugoslavia, a constitution that guaranteed the principle of separation of church and state was adopted (Flere Reference Flere2004, 151).

After attaining independence, Slovenia adopted a law on the matter of religion only in 2007, until then availing itself of a law from communist times. During the period before the 2007 Religious Freedom Act, the registration of religious entities had already become an important issue on the Slovenian political and cultural scene, predominantly as one of the many topics on which clericalist and liberalist forces disagreed. Within these disputes, the attempt to register “The Church of Holy Simplicity” stands out as perhaps the most revealing. In 2004, a group of young researchers and intellectuals established a religious entity called “The Church of Holy Simplicity” (Cerkev svete preproščine), in order to observe the registration procedures for religious entities in Slovenia. The Church of Holy Simplicity ended up as the first religious entity in the history of Slovenia to be refused registration based on the argument that the doctrines of the entity were not of a religious nature (Lesjak and Črnič Reference Lesjak and Črnič2007). The attempt was, as its proponents admit, primarily a sociological experiment testing the (ideological) flexibility of state procedures regarding the registration of religious entities. Besides that, this case can be, and often was, understood as the first attempt in Slovenia at ridiculing the procedures for registration of religious entities, and potentially also at ridiculing religion itself.

The Religious Freedom Act of 2007 introduced changes that were about to move Slovenia away from strict state-church separationism and in the direction of increased cooperation between the state and the RCC. Among others, the Act installed new and relatively strict requirements for the registration of religious entities. In Article 13, it requires 100 members to have subscribed for the registration of a new entity, these members being citizens or permanent residents of Slovenia and for the entity to have operated for at least 10 years without registration, i.e., without the capacity of a legal entity. The applicants also needed to submit a large number of supplements to the request for registration, including a description of the entity's teachings in the Slovenian language, its rituals and its “worship of God.” The latter demand would appear to be especially problematic, since it implicitly presupposes a monotheistic religion.

Although there are European countries with stricter conditions, in the Slovenian historical context these conditions are rather restrictive. This is evidenced, among other items, by a lack of any registration on the basis of this Act (Lesjak and Lekić Reference Lesjak and Lekić2013, 159). The Act was, in its major provisions, including registration, declared null by the Constitutional Court in 2007, but a full replacement statute has not yet been adopted, although there have been numerous initiatives and much discussion. On the other hand, in 2013 an amending statute ruling on registration was adopted. Under this statute, 10 subscribers of the appropriate age and citizenship would suffice for registration of a religious entity. Additionally, the request for documents to be submitted describing the faith and practice has also been omitted (State portal of Republic of Slovenia 2013).

This situation allowed for two sociologically interesting new religious entities to be registered in 2014. One is called UPASANA–SANJAVA the freedom of spirit, worldview cosmological entity (UPASANA–SANJAVA prostost duha, svetovno-nazorska kozmološka skupnost), and the other is called the Trans-universal Zombie Church of Blessed Bell Tolling (Čezvesoljska Zombi cerkev blaženega zvonenja-TZCBBT). Both of them quite clearly exhibit characteristics of parody religion, defined as “movements that deliberately mimic the elements of established religions and are intentionally absurd” (Laycock Reference Laycock2013, 19).

Although both are similar in being provocative and far from a traditional understanding of organized religion, the second one attracted much more public attention. This is partly because regular bell tolling by the prevailing religious entity, the RCC, had been a public issue in Slovenia prior to this registration. Thus, many citizens, especially in urban areas, considered bell tolling by the RCC as a form of noise, sometimes beyond tolerable limits (Alič Reference Alič2013). Even the leading political party in the Slovenian parliament at the time, Positive Slovenia, upheld these complaints and stood for the limitation of bell tolling by the RCC (24kul 2013). The Slovenian RCC took the position that bell tolling should not be considered as noise under any circumstances and referred to the European Union's Environmental Noise Directive (European Commission 2002) which does not explicitly define bell tolling as a form of noise (Slovenian Bishops Conference 2013). So far, the efforts to limit bell tolling have been unsuccessful, and this may have been an important motive for giving the newly registered religious entity a name that included the phrase “blessed bell tolling.” In fact, on its official website, bell tolling is stated as the main mission of the entity. In Article 20, the “Holy Book” of the entity, as pronounced by the “Arch-priest Igor,” states that it is “the duty of every Trans-universal Church believer to toll bells, creating blessed sounds by pans and holy pots.” This was put into practice, for instance, in April 2014 by pan and pot banging in front of the Slovenian parliament or, according to the members of the entity, in front of “the temple of corruption and the house of the original sin” (MMC RTV SLO 2014). The loud noise naturally attracted the attention of the public and also of the police. When approached by a police officer, the leader of the entity explained that the holy mass of their officially registered religious entity was taking place and that therefore the police were not legally allowed to interrupt (Grah Reference Grah2014).

The possible legal and broader social consequences of this action can be better understood if the Slovenian context is taken into account. According to the leader of the TZCBBT, the idea originated among protesters during the Slovenian uprising in 2013, a large public revolt directed mainly against corrupt politicians and austerity policies. Since some of the protesters were detained by the police, and all were characterized as zombies by some of the principal figures of the leading political party at the time (Slovenian Democratic Party), a group of protesters perceived that they could have a much better position for publicly expressing their opinions as a registered religious group (MMC RTV SLO 2014). Thus, in April 2014, the “zombie protesters” returned to the front of the parliament building, but this time backed by their status as a religious entity.

It should be stressed that it is not our intention to reveal the true motives of the founders of the TZCBBT, but rather to point to the actual legal and social consequences of these actions. In this light it becomes quite obvious that, through registration as religious entity, the members of TZCBBT gained rights that they would not have had as ordinary citizens. They were able to conduct a loud, protest-oriented event in front of the Parliament, without having announced it to the police (which is otherwise required for public gatherings in Slovenia).

However, the issue has the potential to go even further than this: Article 8 of the TZCBBT statute holds that the seat of the Church is at the personal address of each member of the entity. Since the main mission of the TZCBBT, as already mentioned, is tolling bells, pans and pots, members might begin to exercise this “religious right” on a regular basis, probably making life for their neighbors substantially less comfortable.

This, of course, sheds a different light on claims by the RCC that their bell tolling cannot be considered as noise at all and that it can thus be louder than the legal noise allowance in inhabited areas. Following this argument in the context of the principle of equality of all religious entities before the law, any religious entity can regularly produce public noise which it considers as sacred. This, of course, could lead to an unbearably noisy life for many citizens of Slovenia. In this sense, the establishment of TZCBBT is also an effective way to highlight one privilege of the RCC of Slovenia with regards to loud bell tolling.

Furthermore, some commentators have pointed out that Article 8 of the TZCBBT statute potentially allows members of the entity to declare their homes as sacred facilities. This is very important in light of the new (2014) real estate tax, which includes relatively high taxes on residential real estate, while sacral facilities are granted a tax exemption. Though the tax is not operational at the moment, it seems quite likely it may become so soon. In this eventuality, members of the TZCBBT might claim tax exemption for their residential real estate. Again, a potential privilege of the RCC, in this case tax exemption for its real estates, is effectively called into question.

Besides these, legally quite serious implications for the RCC (and other registered religious entities), the ridicule of religion, especially the one resembling Roman Catholicism, can clearly be seen in the documents and actions of the TZCBBT. Many indications of such ridicule and mockery can be found in the precepts from the “Holy Book” of the TZCBBT: Article 1 of the “Holy Book,” as pronounced by the “Arch-priest Igor” reveals: “The Universal Church provides for resurrection beyond this world, whereas we, Zombies resurrect even within this world, proving, in the etheric essence, the difference between the universal and the Trans-universal Church.” The leader of the entity underscored the relationship of this precept to the RCC by declaring that “the competition already has the universal (catholic) church” and that consequently, members of the TZCBBT democratically decided that their church should be trans-universal (MMC RTV SLO 2014). Thus, in Article 8 of the Holy Book, we read that, “The Trans-universal Church has no competition, since all churches are limited to the universe.”

To conclude, there are at least three main important social dimensions to the registration of the two parody religions. First, the registration of the TZCBBT, together with its precepts, seriously calls into question certain privileges of the prevailing RCC. This is well in line with Laycock's argument that “… practitioners of parody religions frequently have a political agenda and feel that the legal system's unstated criteria of religion unfairly benefit particular established religious institutions” (2013, 19). Second, both entities are mostly perceived as attempts to ridicule religion and can at least in this sense be understood as expressions of secularization tendencies in Slovenia. And third, the official registration of the two parody religions can also be understood as an indication of liberalization in the registration procedures themselves.

The latter can be discerned from the polemic between the Catholic Institute for the Family and Culture of Life and Gregor Lesjak, the head of the Government Office for religious entities. The Catholic Institute for the Family and Culture of Life declared both newly registered entities as not authentically religious and as an insult “directed against Christianity and the Catholic entity in Slovenia” and “… as part of the so-called de-christianization strategy” (Grah Reference Grah2014). In response, Lesjak stressed that the law does not imply testing of entities for their “true religiousness” and that “… the state is not guardian of the sacred; the area of the sacred is to be guarded by religious entities themselves” (Grah Reference Grah2014). It should be mentioned that in 2004, Lesjak was one of the leading proponents of attempts to register The Church of Holy Simplicity, which can also be seen as a case of parody religion. Back then, the attempt was not successful. In 2014, under Lesjak as the head of the Office for religious entities, two even more provocative parody religions were registered. This clearly indicates a trend toward liberalization of registration procedures and puts Slovenia in line with the general guidelines of the Council of Europe supporting liberalism in registration and recognition of religious entities.

4. THE HUNGARIAN CASE: REVERSAL OF A TREND?

Once the post-communist transition began, it seemed that legislation in most transition countries was headed toward the liberalist standards set by the Council of Europe. Hungary also adopted a liberalist law in 1990, with simple registration procedures for religious groups, without classifying them and with the potential for state financial incentives without discrimination. Under this legislation, 406 religious entities were allegedly registered by 2012. According to the website Sociological and legal data on religions in Europe (Eurel), this was chiefly a consequence of the fact that; “… the state was unable to filter out ‘business churches’ that were only set up to obtain funds but did not perform genuine religious activities.”

A radical turnabout came in 2010 after a rightist majority in the Parliament was established. Christian Democrats and their like-minded partners, decided to change Hungary fundamentally, in line with their understanding of Hungarian identity. What followed were three years of quite substantial and frequent changes regarding the regulation of the status of religious entities. The first new law was abolished by the Constitutional Court for formal reasons, but the second new law entered into force on January 1, 2012. On the same day, the new Constitution of Hungary was adopted, which “may be read easily as if it provided primacy to … [Roman Catholicism] … for being instrumental in preserving nationhood” (Sajo and Uitz Reference Sajo, Uitz, Michel Rosenfeld and Sajo2012, 940–941). In 2013, the Constitutional Court abolished several provisions of the second law, and the Parliament followed by undertaking a set of amendments to correct failures of the law.

The main change under the new legislation was to annul the status of all religious entities, to nominate some churches as being first tier standing and to allow other, previously registered entities to apply for new registration. Moreover, for a religious entity to be registered as a “church,” stricter conditions were set, including 1000 subscribers and 20 years of operations (Sajo and Uitz Reference Sajo, Uitz, Michel Rosenfeld and Sajo2012, 944). The main explanation for undertaking such a change was to do away with “business churches” that had acquired church status for fiscal incentive purposes, which seems to have become a moral panic at the time among the dominant political forces (Sajo and Uitz Reference Sajo, Uitz, Michel Rosenfeld and Sajo2012, 943).

Technical details of these procedures are also very telling. Under the 2012 law, all churches, except the 34 in the expanded list appended to the law, were downgraded to “religious associations.” The new 34 churches at the first rank were nominated (16 initially, and 18 others subsequently) by the Hungarian parliament by way of an appendix to the law without any objective criteria (Sajo and Uitz Reference Sajo, Uitz, Michel Rosenfeld and Sajo2012, 934). The law is very unspecific in this regard and speaks only of the “notable actual social role” of these religious entities, establishing no specific criteria as to which groups are of such a nature and empowering the Parliament to decide about this on a case-by-case basis.

The new legal footing radically changed the situation, particularly by doing away with the equality of legal position for religious entities. The majority of the previously registered entities lost their rank and rights, being downgraded to religious associations. This meant losing significant rights and privileges in the area of social recognition and in being eligible to carry out charitable, psychological, and educational activities. These groups also lost the possibility to obtain direct state subsidies or support via directing a portion of an individual's taxes.

The process of attaining first rank church status for the religious associations is perhaps the most peculiar part of the new law. The proceedings are not to be carried out by the judicial or administrative authorities, which are the two variants in European practice (Doe Reference Doe2010, 102). Rather, the decision is to be made by the national Parliament with a qualified majority, which is not required to explain its decision in a technical way. The decision is left to the Parliament's full political discretion. The law in this regard only speaks of “actual social role,” again without offering any more specific criteria. Moreover, there is no appeal envisaged against such a decision.

Thus, it could be argued that Hungary adopted a three-tier system of religious entities: (1) churches with “actual social role”; (2) churches gaining this status by parliamentary decision; and (3) “religious associations” (Sajo and Uitz Reference Sajo, Uitz, Michel Rosenfeld and Sajo2012, 934). However, since no churches were later added to the 34 that were originally granted this status in two rounds of parliamentary decision making in 2012, the ECtHR speaks of a two-tier system, consisting only of recognized churches and religious associations (Magyar keresztény Mennonita egyház and others v. Hungary 2014, pt. 64).

Obviously, these new stipulations are in sharp contrast to the 1990 law and to trends envisaged by the ECtHR case law. The Venice Commission reacted first by critiquing the new law and in particular the requirement for a 20-year presence in Hungary and 100 years of worldwide existence, as a condition for being recognized as a church (Magyar keresztény Mennonita egyház and others v. Hungary 2014, pt. 57, 64). It also stressed the procedural inadequacies and critiqued the need for previously existing churches to re-register in order to get “religious association” status.

Yet, the major blow came from the ECtHR. In an application by 36 petitioners, the ECtHR speedily adopted a convicting first instance judgment (Magyar keresztény Mennonita egyház and others v. Hungary 2014). The ECtHR did not, in preliminary proceedings, dismiss the petitions as having not exhausted legal remedies in Hungary, because the procedure of parliamentary decision making, without possibility of appeal, does not meet procedural criteria of justice (Magyar keresztény Mennonita egyház and others v. Hungary 2014, pt. 51). The ECtHR was especially critical of “a politically tainted registration procedure,” and “authorities neglecting their duty of neutrality vis-à-vis the applicant entities” (pt. 115). Lack of the former possibility to earmark one's tax for (newly titled) “religious associations” was also found to be an infringement of religious freedom (pt. 112), since it infringes on an already attained religious freedom.