Canon law

There is a very early distinction between the rules enacted by the church and the legislative measures taken by the state called leges, Latin for laws.

[7] The Apostolic Canons[8] or Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles[9] is a collection of ancient ecclesiastical decrees (eighty-five in the Eastern, fifty in the Western Church) concerning the government and discipline of the Early Christian Church, incorporated with the Apostolic Constitutions which are part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

The actual subject material of the canons is not just doctrinal or moral in nature, but all-encompassing of the human condition,[15] and therefore extending beyond what is taken as revealed truth.

Being in holy orders, or fraudulently claiming to be, meant that criminals could opt to be tried by ecclesiastical rather than secular courts.

The benefit of clergy was systematically removed from English legal systems over the next 200 years, although it still occurred in South Carolina in 1855.

As a result, Roman ecclesiastical courts tend to follow the Roman Law style of continental Europe with some variation, featuring collegiate panels of judges and an investigative form of proceeding, called "inquisitorial", from the Latin "inquirere", to enquire.

[22] Catholic Canonical jurisprudential theory generally follows the principles of Aristotelian-Thomistic legal philosophy.

[28] The Eastern Orthodox Church, principally through the work of 18th-century Athonite monastic scholar Nicodemus the Hagiorite, has compiled canons and commentaries upon them in a work known as the Pēdálion (Ancient Greek: Πηδάλιον, 'Rudder'), so named because it is meant to "steer" the church in her discipline.

The dogmatic determinations of the Councils are to be applied rigorously since they are considered to be essential for the church's unity and the faithful preservation of the Gospel.

[29] In the Church of England, the ecclesiastical courts that formerly decided many matters such as disputes relating to marriage, divorce, wills, and defamation, still have jurisdiction of certain church-related matters (e.g. discipline of clergy, alteration of church property, and issues related to churchyards).

Their separate status dates back to the 12th century when the Normans split them off from the mixed secular/religious county and local courts used by the Saxons.

Such lawyers (called "doctors" and "civilians") were centered at "Doctors Commons", a few streets south of St Paul's Cathedral in London, where they monopolized probate, matrimonial, and admiralty cases until their jurisdiction was removed to the common law courts in the mid-19th century.

According to Polly Ha, the Reformed church government refuted this, claiming that the bishops had been enforcing canon law for 1500 years.

The Book of Discipline contains the laws, rules, policies, and guidelines for The United Methodist Church.