Canon law

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Canon law is the term used for the internal Ecclesiastical law of many churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Communion of churches.

Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church has the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the Western World. It is older than the common and European civil law traditions. What began with rules ("canons") adopted by the Apostles themselves at the Council of Jerusalem in the First Century led to a highly complex and original legal system that included norms of the New Testament, of the Hebrew (Old Testament), Roman, Visigothic, Saxon, and Celtic legal traditions with thousands of years of human experience.

Further reading

• Baker, J.H. (2002) An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed. London : Butterworths, ISBN 0-406-93053-8
• The Episcopal Church (2006) Constitution and Canons Archived 2015-09-05 at the Wayback Machine, together with the Rules of Order for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church, New York : Church Publishing, Inc.
• Robinson, O.F.,Fergus, T.D. and Gordon, W.M. (2000) European Legal History, 3rd ed., London : Butterworths, ISBN 0-406-91360-9

Other websites

Catholic

• Code of Canon Law (1983) : non-official but approved IntraText edition with concordance in English (only the Latin version is official), hosted by the Vatican
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• Code of Canons of Oriental Churches, IntraText Digital Library
• Code of Canon Law, IntraText Digital Library, organized in a Table of Contents outline format for easy search: Does not contain 1998 code updates
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Canon Law : outdated, but useful
• 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica Article Archived 2007-06-16 at the Wayback Machine
• Canon Law Wiki: Notes, commentary, discussion and bibliography.

Anglican

• "Canons of the Church of England"Archived 2010-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
• "Canon Law in the Anglican Communion" Archived 2008-05-13 at the Wayback Machine