“Foreword,” to Franciszek Longchamps de Bérier and Rafael Domingo, eds., Law and Christianity in Poland: The Legacy of the Great Jurists

Abstract

This is a brief foreword to the first comprehensive study in English of the interaction of law and Christianity in Poland over the past millennium. The volume offers a score of case studies of major Polish legal thinkers to illustrate several distinct Polish legal ideas and institutions – concerning civil and criminal procedural rights, natural law theory, rule of law, conflict of laws, constitutional monarchy and democracy, separation of powers, and the delicate balance of privileging the majority Roman Catholic Church and protecting various religious and cultural minorities. What has helped to make Polish law so distinctive is its remarkable legal eclecticism, and the ready transplantation and integration by inventive jurists over the centuries of various legal norms and procedures of indigenous legal traditions, European civil law, Anglo-American common law, and Slavic legal systems. What has also helped to make Polish law so distinctive is the pervasive influence of Roman Catholic teachings throughout the second millennium.

Keywords: Poland, Roman Catholicism, natural law theory, law, religion, law and religion, church-state relations, religious freedom, constitutional monarchy