Opinion ID: 1779062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Cantwell v. Connecticut

Text: ś 49. The law recognized two manifestations of one's religion, what one believes, and what one does when acting on those beliefs. This truth was addressed in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940), which held that the Free Exercise Clause guaranteed two separate concepts of freedom: the freedom to believe, and the freedom to act. In elaborating, it further held that the first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society. Id. at 303-04, 60 S.Ct. 900 (emphasis added). Since Cantwell, courts have struggled to mark a line defining where government may begin, for the protection of society, to regulate religious conduct. Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America ś 50. Twelve years following Cantwell, the Court decided Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U.S. 94, 73 S.Ct. 143, 97 L.Ed. 120 (1952), which involved a dispute over control of the New York churches of the Russian Orthodox religion. The Court of Appeals of New York decided the dispute by applying a New York statute to transfer control from the Patriarch of Moscow and the Holy Synod, to the governing authorities of the church in America. In reversing, the United States Supreme Court held that the statute directly prohibit[ed] the free exercise of a ecclesiastical right, the Church's choice of its hierarchy. The Court went on to state: Ours is a government which by the law of its being allows no statute, state or national, that prohibits the free exercise of religion. There are occasions when civil courts must draw lines between the responsibilities of church and state for the disposition or use of property. Even in those cases when the property right follows as an incident from decisions of the church custom or law on ecclesiastical issues, the church rule controls. This under our Constitution necessarily follows in order that there may be free exercise of religion. 344 U.S. at 120-21, 73 S.Ct. 143 (footnotes omitted).