What’s so important about the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom?

Interviewer: Katherine Dillman

Sophia Cabana investigates the battle between religious establishment and religious liberty in Virginia, telling the story of how the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom came to be.  She also explains what it meant to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the two men who did the most to create it. Virginia’s decade-long journey towards disestablishing the Anglican Church was the beginning of a nation-wide movement for religious freedom which represented a break from the traditions of Europe.