Religious liberty on the basis of the output of modern legal thought is widely recognized as a fundamental human right, the content of which includes, also the category of thought and conscience. In a democratic legal state, of the issue religious freedom is part of the concept of the secular character of the state, which naturally defines the position of confessional institutions in the state and constitutes a model of action of public bodies towards the individual. However, the actual role of religion and institutions built on it depending on the social context is understood in a variety of way. In the case of the Czech Republic and the Republic of Turkey, two approaches of the same normative category are in fact noticed. Although de iure, according to their constitutions, both states have a secular character, the actual perception of this principle by public authorities is relativized through the prism of presence or absence of religion dominating in the society of a given state. Therefore, the aim of this study will be to present how and with what effect the Czech and Turkish legislator incorporated the concept of a secular state and confessional freedoms into domestic constitutional systems, and how a legal norm in different social conditions can be interpreted differently.