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Legal status of religious bodies, levels of their legal recognition

The registration of the religious communities has to be carried out by the competent body, i.e. by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
Act No. 3/2002 Sb. made it possible for a much wider range of religious communities to gain registration by a reduction of the condition as to size from 10,000 adult believers to 300 adult believers. Newly registered religious communities acquire their basic legal personality, certain tax advantages and the right to found derived legal persons.
Religious communities, which were registered before Act No. 3/2002 Sb. came into force, could enjoy so called “special rights”, if they enjoyed them before. Newly registered religious communities can acquire “special rights” ten years after their registration if they fulfil additional prerequisites of the law: the number of adult members must be at least equal to 0,1 % of the residents of the Czech Republic, having published an annual financial report during the last ten years, and having duly fulfilled obligations.

Special rights can include, according to the Act No. 3/2002 Sb.:
 teaching religion in public schools and founding Church schools,
 pastoral care in prisons and the army,
 the right to celebrate marriages with civil effects,
 to maintain confessional confidentiality, if the religious community proves that such confidentiality has been practised for at least fifty years.

Registered religious communities as well as religious communities registered with special rights can found “unions of churches and religious societies”. These unions as such are registered in a special register of the Ministry of Culture. They enjoy a legal personality, but can not found derived legal persons.

Act No. 372/2011 Sb., on Health Care Services and Conditions for Providing Them, stipulates that a patient is entitled to the provision of spiritual care by any registered religious community. The patient may not be denied a visit by a minister, should their life be in danger or if facing serious risk to health.

D 14 September 2016    AJiří Rajmund Tretera AZáboj Horák

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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