비법인사단으로서의 교회의 실체에 대한 고찰

Abstract

An individual church, an unincorporated juridical organization, can belong to a specific religious body, or may not. Looking into the Korean Presbyterian church(unification religious body), one of the most popular Christian organizations in Korea, there is a General Assembly of the religious body, a General Assembly of the Elders, and an individual church. A church with a congregation of 30 people or less isn't recognized as a regular individual church by the churches mentioned above. Only an individual church with a congregation of more than 30 people can join the General Assembly of Elders and can dispatch a delegation to it. The General Assembly of Elders consists of the representatives dispatched by an individual church. In general, the General Assembly of Elders establishes a foundation for the maintenance and management of the property that an individual church entrusts. It is generally understood that an individual church entrust its property to a maintenance foundation which the General Assembly of Elders established. However, the Supreme Court insists that the property of an individual church managed by it should be its own property. Hence, it is against the code of the Act to entrust money to the real name of the owner of the real estate. Such an ignorance raises lots of legal problems. The Supreme Court recently changed an usual legal opinion about the church. The main issues of the case are that the splitting of the church is not permitted, and since those who left the church are not members of the church any longer, they don't have the right to properties of the church because the principle of civil law of the unincorporated juridical organization should be applied to the church. I think that it's not fair for people who contributed money to the church to be deprived of their property rights and their rights as members of church by the Supreme Court. In this thesis, I studied the legal quality, the system, the authority and the relation of the properties of the church regarding the Korean Presbyterian church (unification religious body), one of the most popular Christian organizations in Korea. And by comparing the Constitution of the church leaders meeting for Korea Christianity(unification side) with the Civil Law, I tried to examine closely the difference between the Act of the church and the Act of the people. And I tried to examine the limitation of the right for self-control of the church and the limitation of judicial review about a legal contestation. I hope that this will contribute to the legal study of the church a little.