In the pre-Reformation era, the organization of the church within a land was understood as a landeskirche, certainly under a higher power (the pope or a patriarch), but also possessing an increased measure of independence, especially as concerning its internal structure and its relations to its king, prince or ruler.
Unlike in Scandinavia and England, the bishops in the national churches did not survive the Reformation, making it impossible for a conventional diocesan system to continue within Lutheranism.
The principle of cuius regio, eius religio also arose out of the Reformation, and according to this a Landesherr chose what denomination his subjects had to belong to.
The principle was a byproduct of religious politics in the Holy Roman Empire and soon softened after the Thirty Years' War.
The second date refers to the year, when the respective church body ceased to exist (if so), due to a merger or unwinding.
Those of the following Landeskirchen, which existed in 1948, founded the new Protestant umbrella Evangelical Church in Germany (German: Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland).
The communist dictatorship in East Germany imposed further name changes and administrative reorganisations along the inner German borders.
The second date refers to the year, when the respective church body ceased to exist (if so), due to a merger or unwinding.
Since each has executive and legislative bodies, elected by its statutory members (i.e. the parishioners of age), each Roman Catholic church body is accepted as a democratic entity entitled to levy member fees (also by way of a church tax), because the usage of the funds is decided by the elected representatives of those who defray them.
Whereas the term Landeskirche actually implies that the body is a separate denomination, the term cantonal church would be more appropriate for Roman Catholic regional church bodies, since they form a cantonally delineated corporation of the Roman Catholic parishioners within a canton but are cooperating and providing services to their members, who in the canonical sense remain members of the Roman Catholic Church pastoring them by its respective diocese.
[4] The Roman Catholic cantonal church bodies form part of the Roman Catholic Central Conference of Switzerland (RKZ, official names in German: Römisch-Katholische Zentralkonferenz der Schweiz, French: Conférence centrale catholique romaine de Suisse, Italian: Conferenza centrale cattolica romana della Svizzera, Romansh: Conferenza centrala catolica romana da la Svizra).