Following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louix XIV in October 1685, Protestant worship was illegal in France. This was the case until they received limited toleration during the French Revolution culminating on 8th April 1802, when Napoleon Bonaparte promulgated the law of 18 Germinal an X, also known as the Organic Articles, which granted full religious tolerance to Protestants.
Under the terms of this legislation there was to be no national synod, rather the law established regional church organisations known as consistoires; there was to be no state within the state. This same law also set down the relationship between the French state and the Catholic church, which was effectively nationalised.
You can read more about the Organic Articles in an article on the Catholic Encyclopedia site.
8 April 2008
On this day in history: French Protestants granted freedom of worship, 1802
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3 comments:
Thanks to JohnGuru for pointing out the schoolboy error in the original post.
K
I love the blog, Kevin. Keep up the good work. The daily this-day-in-history idea is a good one, I think :-)
Thanks for the kind words, John. I have just realised that I might be misrepresenting the facts with this post. So, I have amended it to point out that the French Protestants were granted a degree of freedom by the French Revolution of 1789. Rather bad form of me to have forgotten that.
K
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