RELIGION, Established, or STATE RE LIGION, that form of religious belief and worship which is recognized by the government or constitution of a country as national and t*iiiitit &min priinleges and is supported by the treasury Or by tithes. The idea of complete separation Of civil government and religious affairs it peculiar to modern times. In the ages before Christianitv'the administra tion of religious affairs was. a function of the state and the priesthoods were orders in the State. After the triumph of Christianity the relations between church and state in the Roman Empire were intimate and the civil power freely intervened in the government of the Church. the prelates of the Church also were vested with extraordinary powers by the state. Throughout the Middle Ages the civil power nms erf•rywhere in the last resort the Church's armed right hand for the enforcement of uniformity in religion. For a long time after the Reformation the uni formity of religious belief and ceremonial was held to be indispensable: in the present age, though in many countries state churches exist, controlled by public authority and supported from the Public purse, uniformity is no longer enforted by civil penalties and the subject is petinitted to reject the state religion, to em brace another religion or to ignore religion; but in some countries dissidents from the reli gion of the state suffer certain civil disabilitieS.
It is urged in favor of the national recognition of a form of religion, that if the majority of a nation are prevented from making this public recognition of it, as a matter of primary im portance to the state's welfare, then they are subject to coercion by the minority; and if an established church uses no sort of coercion, its being supported by the state in the face of a protesting minority is no greater violation of equal rights than would be its disestablish, nient at the behest of the same minority.