Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
229 federal appellate · 67 district · 589 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,150 later decisions (38 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith (1990), School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III (1963)
229 federal appellate · 67 district · 589 state decisions — followed in 43 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 29 U.S.C. § 159 (§ 9 of the National Labor Relations Act)
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co. · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Everson v. Board of Education · Winters v. People of State of New York
Cited together with Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for United States and Canada v. Milivojevich · Presbyterian Church in US v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church · Jones v. Wolf · Watson v. Jones · Lemon v. Kurtzman
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,150 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.”
46 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In this country the full and free right to entertain any religious belief, to practice any religious principle, and to teach any religious doctrine which does not violate the laws of morality and property, and which does not infringe personal rights, is conceded to all. The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect. The right to organize voluntary religious associations to assist in the expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the decision of controverted questions of faith within the association, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the individual members, congregations, and officers within the general association, is unquestioned. All who united themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. But it would be a vain consent and would lead to the total subversion of such religious bodies, if anyone aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal to the secular courts and have them reversed. It is of the essence of these religious unions, and of their right to establish tribunals for the decision of questions arising among themselves, that those decision should be binding in all cases of ecclesiastical cognizance, subject only to such appeals as the organization itself provides for.”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In the absence of fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness, the decisions of the proper church tribunals on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive, because the parties in interest made them so by contract or otherwise.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.