The main purpose for writing this book derived primarily from the needs of the students of law, political studies, journalism, as well as public relations studies, organized as studies in the 1st cycle, and, of course, the students in the second cycle, or master studies in constitutional law and political system, as well as master studies in political sciences. At the same time, considering the aims of any university coursebook, we believe that this paper will be of benefit to all relevant stakeholders outside the Universities, who will be dealing with or are interested in this important issue.
Law and religion have never been autonomous and independent of each other.
Religion has always influenced the creation of legal systems, starting with the polises, then the communities, and later the states, and the other way around - law has had significant influence on religion and its exponents throughout human history. It is a notorious fact that religion is embedded in the foundations of all modern legal systems existing in many states, starting with those in the Middle East, through Africa, Europe, to Latin and North Americas and Asia. To what extent and how religion has influenced the law of the respective legal systems is a question that can be precisely answered by the analysts.
Of course, the reverse relation is also very interesting and important – to what extend the law and the specifically established legal systems have had influence on shaping religion and religious entities and regulations.
In this context, it is particularly important for us to research the ways in which the constitutional and legal order, or the constitutional and legal systems of the states affect religion and religious associations, as well as the respect of the human rights and freedoms. This issue has indisputably had a millennial tradition.
This brings us to the conclusion that people today have a significant historical experience at their disposal, as well as different kinds of views and numerous practical examples of evident mutual influences between the law and the religion and vice versa.
However, although great many theorists have left their traces in revealing the meaning and the principles governing these two global and civilizational themes, the scientific community, even today, shows growing interest for another review of the available papers, in order to determine a specific discourse in analyzing these phenomena.
The reason for this is most probably related to the dynamic nature of the law and the development of the state, on one hand, and the fundamental importance of religion for that dynamism and complexity, on the other.
The intellectual interests in the relations between these two categories is determined by the individual approach of each of the researches, because of the possibility that something has been omitted by their predecessors, or presented in a different way, or insufficiently explained.
These very motifs, supplemented with the theoretical void in relation to the explanation of the relationship between the law and the religion in our country, serves as the key determinant to conduct detailed analysis of this vast and relatively complex matter.
As authors of this coursebook we hope that we entered every alley trying to explain the most important element with due attention.
We would like to highlight that this is the first coursebook of “Law and Religion” at the Law Faculty “Iustinianus Primus”, but also in the country.
The paper “Law and Religion” is the sixth coursebook published as a result of the continuous and long-term support provided to us as authors by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
Within this mega project, the following coursebooks have been published so far:
“Political Parties and Interest Groups”, as well as the English version of the coursebook with the same title, published in 2016;
“Contemporary Political Systems”, as well as the English version of the coursebook with the same title, in 2018, and
The coursebook “Parliamentary Right”, in 2019.
Having in mind the aforementioned, as authors, we would like to express our genuine gratitude to the representatives of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Skopje, for recognizing the value and supporting the realization of this project idea, thus enabling further modernization of the educational process in the Macedonian universities, as well as facilitating the studies by enabling students to use these resources for free. Having in mind the character of the matter that we deal with in the books, including this one, we believe that all enthusiasts outside the universities in the society will be able to satisfy their need for more knowledge about the political parties, the political systems, the legislative powers, as well as the relation between the law and the religion, which is another argument in favour of the value of this exceptionally important publication.