Secularity in the context of "Christianity in Kosovo"

A secular state is an idea pertaining to secularity, whereby a state is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion. A secular state claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen based on their religious beliefs, affiliation or lack of either over those with other profiles.

Although secular states have no state religion, the absence of an established state religion does not mean that a state is completely secular or egalitarian. For example, some states that describe themselves as secular have religious references in their national anthems and flags, laws that benefit one religion or another, or are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance.

The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the West Bank) that make up the State of Palestine in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. Its capital and largest city is Gaza City.

The territorial boundaries were established while Gaza was controlled by the Kingdom of Egypt at the conclusion of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. During that period the All-Palestine Protectorate, also known as All-Palestine, was established with limited recognition and it became a refuge for Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestine war. Later, during the Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the Gaza Strip, initiating its decades-long military occupation of the Palestinian territories. The mid-1990s Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a limited governing authority, initially led by the secular party Fatah until that party's electoral defeat in 2006 to the Sunni Islamic Hamas. Hamas would then take over the governance of Gaza in the Battle of Gaza the next year, subsequently warring with Israel.

Caesaropapism /ˌsiːzəroʊˈpeɪpɪzəm/ is the idea of blending the social and political power of secular government with religious power, or of making secular authority superior to the spiritual authority of the Church, especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. Although Justus Henning Böhmer (1674–1749) may have originally coined the term caesaropapism (Cäseropapismus), it was Max Weber (1864–1920) who wrote that "a secular, caesaropapist ruler ... exercises supreme authority in ecclesiastic matters by virtue of his autonomous legitimacy." According to Weber, caesaropapism entails "the complete subordination of priests to secular power."

In an extreme form, caesaropapism is where the head of state, notably the emperor ("Caesar", by extension a "superior" king), is also the supreme head of the church (pope or analogous religious leader). In this form, caesaropapism inverts theocracy (or hierocracy in Weber), in which institutions of the church control the state. Both caesaropapism and theocracy are systems in which there is no separation of church and state and in which the two form parts of a single power-structure.

Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Islamic world encompasses a wide geographic area historically ranging from western Africa and Europe to eastern Asia. Certain commonalities are shared by Islamic architectural styles across all these regions, but over time different regions developed their own styles according to local materials and techniques, local dynasties and patrons, different regional centers of artistic production, and sometimes different religious affiliations.

Early Islamic architecture was influenced by Roman, Byzantine, Iranian, and Mesopotamian architecture and all other lands which the early Muslim conquests conquered in the seventh and eighth centuries. Later it developed distinct characteristics in the form of buildings and in the decoration of surfaces with Islamic calligraphy, arabesques, and geometric motifs. New architectural elements like minarets, muqarnas, and multifoil arches were invented. Common or important types of buildings in Islamic architecture include mosques, madrasas, tombs, palaces, hammams (public baths), Sufi hospices (e.g. khanqahs or zawiyas), fountains and sabils, commercial buildings (e.g. caravanserais and bazaars), and military fortifications.

A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to Prince of the Church itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the Bishop of Urgell, Catalonia, who has remained ex officio one of two co-princes of Andorra, along with the French president.

State atheism is the incorporation of hard atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It is considered the opposite of theocracy and may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. To some extent, it is a religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically linked to irreligion and the promotion of irreligion or atheism. State atheism may refer to a government's promotion of anti-clericalism, which opposes religious institutional power and influence in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. In some instances, religious symbols and public practices that were once held by religions were replaced with secularized versions of them. State atheism in these cases is considered as not being politically neutral toward religion, and therefore it is often considered non-secular.

The majority of communist states followed similar policies from 1917 onwards. The Soviet Union (1922–1991) had a long history of state atheism, whereby those who were seeking social success generally had to profess atheism and stay away from places of worship; this trend became especially militant during the middle of the Stalinist era, which lasted from 1929 to 1953. In Eastern Europe, countries like Bulgaria, East Germany and Czechoslovakia experienced strong state atheism policies. The Soviet Union attempted to suppress public religious expression over wide areas of its influence, including places such as Central Asia. Currently, China, North Korea, and Vietnam, are officially atheist.