Last week the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued it decision in a much-anticipated case involving the right of Romanian Orthodox priests to unionize against the wishes of their church. According to the Center for Law and Religion Forum, the proposed union was meant to promote members’ ability to obtain representation in the Holy Synod, the Church’s highest authority, and to strike in order to advance members’ interests within the Church. By registering a union with goals like these, the Grand Chamber reasoned, the state would hamper the ability of the Church to organize and govern itself according to its own rules:

Respect for the autonomy of munities … implies, in particular, that the State should accept the right of munities to react, in accordance with their own rules and interests, to any dissident movements emerging within them that might pose a threat to their cohesion, image or unity. It is … not the task of the national authorities to act as the arbiter between munities and the various dissident factions that exist or may emerge within them.

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(Via: First Things)