## Facts

- A dispute arose over control of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the United States and Canada and related church property.
- The Serbian Orthodox Church’s highest governing bodies (the Holy Assembly of Bishops and the Holy Synod) investigated allegations against Bishop Dionisije Milivojevich.
- Those bodies suspended, then removed and defrocked Dionisije, and appointed another bishop (Firmilian) as administrator.
- The Mother Church reorganized the single American-Canadian diocese into three dioceses.
- Dionisije sued in Illinois state court seeking to block interference with diocesan assets held by certain Illinois not-for-profit corporations and to obtain a declaration that he remained the legitimate diocesan bishop of the undivided diocese.
- After trial, the Illinois circuit court largely ruled for the church authorities, but the Illinois Supreme Court set aside the defrockment as “arbitrary” for alleged noncompliance with internal church law and invalidated the reorganization as beyond church authority without diocesan approval.

## Issues

1. Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit a civil court to review and overturn decisions of the highest tribunals of a hierarchical church on clergy discipline and removal by deeming the decisions “arbitrary” or inconsistent with internal church law.
2. Whether a civil court may invalidate a hierarchical church’s internal reorganization of diocesan structure (and resulting property control consequences) based on purported “neutral principles” that require interpretation of church polity and religious law.

## Decision

- The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Illinois Supreme Court.
- The Illinois Supreme Court’s review of whether the church complied with its own constitution and penal code impermissibly inserted civil courts into ecclesiastical matters.
- Civil courts must treat as binding the determinations of the highest authorities of a hierarchical church on matters of discipline, governance, and internal organization.
- The “arbitrariness” rationale, as applied to alleged procedural defects under church law, was an unconstitutional method of second-guessing ecclesiastical decisions.
- The attempted use of “neutral principles” to invalidate the diocesan reorganization was impermissible because it required deciding questions of church polity and religious law.

## Legal Principles

- When a hierarchical church’s highest judicatories decide questions of discipline, faith, ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law, civil courts must accept those decisions as final and binding.
- The First Amendment (as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment) bars civil adjudication that requires interpretation or application of internal church law to determine the validity of ecclesiastical acts.
- Civil courts may not conduct “minimal” or “arbitrariness” review of hierarchical church decisions if doing so entails inquiry into religious law, discipline, or polity.
- A “neutral principles of law” approach cannot be used to resolve disputes where the analysis depends on deciding who holds ecclesiastical office or the scope of authority within a church’s internal governance structure.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Constitution prohibits state courts from overturning hierarchical church decisions on clergy discipline and diocesan reorganization by labeling them “arbitrary” or applying purportedly neutral methods that require resolving questions of ecclesiastical governance; the highest church authorities’ determinations must be accepted as binding in civil litigation.


Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for the U.S.A. & Can. v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696 (1976)