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Peter ERDO and Peter SZABO, eds., Budapest, Szent Istvan Tarsulat, 2002, 927 p. - ISBN 963-361-415-5.
Territoriality and personality are two criteria for the organisational structuring of societies and legal systems, including canon law. In addition to the fundamental distinction between territorial and personal laws, many structures and institutions of the Church are identifiable as territorial or personal. Parishes and dioceses, for example, are territorial as a rule. The personal dimension is seen in structures such as associations of the faithful, religious institutes, personal parishes and, more fundamentally, in the theological understanding of the Church as people of God, the baptised christifideles. Understanding the relationship between the two dimensions has particular importance today, especially in Europe, where often the most vital expressions of Catholic Christianity are found in various lay associations and movements, not in the local parishes.
Undoubtedly, the principles of territoriality and personality are central to canon law as well as other legal systems, but one is still awed that nearly 1000 pages could be devoted to this and related subjects. This tome is the complete proceedings of the eleventh International Congress of Canon Law and the fifteenth International Congress of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches. The official languages of the joint congress were Italian and English -- thus, the dual version of the title. The communications are in the major languages of canon law: seventeen in Spanish, fourteen in Italian, eight in German, five in English, and two each in French and Portuguese. In addition, there is a "roundtable" panel of four presentations on territorial and personal ecclesial structures in Europe. Anyone researching questions related to territoriality and personality in canon law and ecclesiastical law will find here abundant perspectives, indeed, by fifty different authors. Given the very large number of contributions, summarising and evaluating them in a brief review is impossible; it must suffice to identify the authors of the principal conferences and papers and the topics they address.