PHILLIPS, GEORGE. - Jurist, b. 6 Jan. 1804 at Königsberg, d. 6 Sept. 1872 at Aigen near Salzburg. Extraordinary professor of German law at the University of Berlin, he abjured Protestantism in 1828 and, having left Berlin, moved to the University of Munich in Bavaria.
A deputy to the Frankfurt Constituent Assembly in 1848-49, he subsequently became professor at the University of Innsbruck in 1850 and, from 1851, at Vienna, where he remained until his death. He attained wide renown especially through his unfinished work, Kirchenrecht, in 7 vols., published from 1845 to 1872. In it he revived the doctrine of the potestas indirecta of the Papacy over the State, contributing through this theory to bring Josephinism to an end in the Habsburg Empire, and he upheld papal infallibility in religious matters.