Evangelical Church A. u. HB in Austria

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The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions in Austria , mostly abbreviated as Evangelical Church A. u. H. B. in Austria , is the amalgamation of the independent Evangelical Church AB in Austria and the Evangelical Church HB in Austria .

The Evangelical Church A. B. is named after the Augsburg Confession (A. B.); it is the Lutheran Church in Austria . The Evangelical Church H. B. has its name after the Helvetic Confession (H. B.) and is the Reformed Church of the country. A. u. H. B. or AuHB stands for "A. B. and H. B. ”or“ Augsburg and Helvetian Confession ”and thus for the union of the two large Protestant churches in Austria.

Ratio of Catholics (purple), Protestants (purple) and others (white) by federal state (2001)
The focus around Salzkammergut / Ausseerland is spread across the federal states of Salzburg, Upper Austria and Styria.

The number of members of the two large Protestant churches in Austria has been falling continuously for decades and at the end of 2019 was around 3.19% of the total population of Austria.

history

Reformation and Counter Reformation

Luther's writings were reprinted in Vienna and Breslau as early as the 1520s. Many Catholic priests preached Protestant doctrine, and outside Vienna and the surrounding area, many cities switched to Protestantism. In 1524, Caspar Tauber was one of the first Protestant martyrs to be executed on Austrian soil. The foothills of the German Peasant War also reached parts of the Habsburg Empire; the peasant uprising can be seen in the context of the evangelical movement of this time. The suppression of the uprisings regularly led to the elimination of the Protestant estates and the sympathetic priests. Petitions from 1538 (Upper Austria) and 1541 (Prague General Parliament) required Ferdinand I to allow the preaching of the pure word of God and the lawful use of the sacraments. Representatives of important noble families, such as the Polheim , Starhemberg , Ungnad, Herberstein , as well as the representatives of the provincial cities, among others Graz , Linz , Laibach , Enns , Steyr , supported the petitions. After the victory of Emperor Charles V over the Schmalkaldic League in 1547, the Counter Reformation in Austria was promoted more strongly.

From 1600 onwards there were systematic book burnings ; In Graz alone around 10,000 Protestant books were burned. The secret Protestants then carefully tried to hide their documents. Books were smuggled in from other parts of the empire. A Lutheran Bible had the exchange value of a cow. The “ordinary” citizens were fined to attend Catholic services, which was followed by several waves of emigration. The Austrian aristocracy was not prosecuted until 1628 with the demand for conversion - within a year. The migrants also included the family of Justinian von Welz , who was around 7 years old at the time and who later became a pioneer of Lutheran world missions . After the Upper Austrian Peasants' War of 1626, the official class churchism practically ceased to exist.

Secret Protestants and transmigrants

In the Austrian monarchy, secret Protestantism could last for different lengths of time. While it expired around the big cities within two to three generations, it was able to hold out in mountain and border areas until the tolerance patent of 1781. The history of the Salzburg exiles and the rural folk and transmigrants is also set in the 16th century. In addition, there were Protestant services in Vienna at that time in the Dutch legation chapel (reformed) and in the chapels of the Danish and Swedish legations (Lutheran).

The secret Protestants adhered to their faith with external concessions to the state religion through reading services and private reading of Bibles and prayer books. Most of these books came from the period of (Protestant) Orthodoxy and early Pietism; thereby the Austrian Evangelicals were practically cut off from the spiritual currents in the rest of the German Empire, where the late Enlightenment had already started.

Tolerance patent from 1781 and subsequent period

In October 1781, Joseph II issued the so-called tolerance patent for the Evangelical Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions and for the Orthodox. Since 1781 non-Catholics, if they had 500 souls or 100 families strong, were allowed to form their own churches. The houses of prayer were not allowed to have an entrance from the street or a tower. The “official transfer” of the previous secret Protestants to the “correct” Protestant community had to take place before a state commission; a great moral courage was therefore required for this step.

Between 1781 and 1785, 48 tolerance communities emerged in Austria, for example Ramsau am Dachstein (1782), Bad Goisern (1782), Gosau (1784), Wels (1782) and Vienna (1782). At the end of 1785, over 107,000 people were already "registered" as Protestants in what was then Cisleithanien . After the emperor's death, the tolerance patent was handled very restrictively in some parts of the country, for example with regard to the Zillertal inclinants .

19th century

The Protestant Church in Austria was able to continue to build up its infrastructure - i.e. churches, schools, hospitals - in the 19th century. The situation improved further with the revolution of 1848. The conversion to another denomination became free (without compulsory religion lessons for Protestants), the Protestant pastors were given the right to keep registrations that were valid under the registry office, and Catholic priests no longer had to pay a fee . Emperor Franz Joseph I issued the Protestant patent on April 8, 1861 . This law gave the Protestant Church relative legal equality for the first time.

With the elimination of the 500 souls clause, more parishes could be founded. The structure of the church was defined in four stages: parish, senior, superintential and general parish. The general synods could now enact laws, which of course still had to be confirmed by the emperor. The Gustav-Adolf-Verein was able to officially start its work in Austria.

20th century

Members of Protestant Churches
A. B. u. H. B. in Austria
year population Members proportion of
1951 6,933,905 429.493 6.19%
1961 7,073,807 438,663 6.20%
1971 7,491,526 447.070 5.97%
1981 7,555,338 423.162 5.60%
1991 7,795,786 388,709 4.99%
2001 8,032,926 376.150 4.68%
2011 8,408,121 319,752 3.80%
2012 8,451,860 325.905 3.86%
2013 8,507,786 313,352 3.68%
2014 8,584,926 309.158 3.60%
2015 8,700,471 306.183 3.52%
2016 8,772,865 301,729 3.44%
2017 8,822,267 296,338 3.36%
2018 8,858,775 290.929 3.28%
2019 8,902,600 283,628 3.19%

From 1900 to 1939 the total number of Protestants in Austria tripled and reached around 5.5% of the total population. The Protestant churches in Austria were administered by an Evangelical Upper Church Council (EOK), a state authority that was subordinate to the Ministry of Culture in Vienna. Since the First World War , the A. B. Church has been divided into four superintendencies . More than two thirds of the members belonged to the Vienna Superintendent ; there was also a notable number of Protestant parishes in Upper Austria and Burgenland . In the other parts of Austria the Protestants were in a diaspora situation in a Catholic environment. About 16,000 members (Reformed) belonged to the Helvetic Confession.

In Vienna, many evangelicals met in the Evangelical Alliance , namely employees of the Swedish Israel Mission , City Mission, Bible Society , People's Mission, YMCA , but also individual deaconesses, religion teachers and pastors (such as Georg Traar or Hans Rieger).

The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions was incorporated into the German Evangelical Church in the summer of 1939 after Austria was annexed to the German Empire on March 13, 1938 .

Of the 126 pastors of the Protestant churches in Austria, 73 were members of the NSDAP before the annexation . After the Anschluss, the NSDAP no longer accepted any active pastors as members without, however, informing those concerned about the reason for the rejection.

In the Protestant circles of Austria there was an exaggerated German nationalism , which was partly due to the fact that many Protestants oriented themselves towards the Protestant German Reich. On the other hand, as part of the Los-von-Rom movement, many Catholics with a German national or “ Greater German ” mind converted to the Protestant denomination. The Austrian Protestants particularly supported the efforts to join German Austria to Germany, which the Allied victorious powers prohibited in the Treaty of Saint Germain .

In 1946 the church leadership divided the “old” Vienna diocese into four new dioceses. In 1949 the republic accepted a new church constitution, which was adopted by the general synod A. u. H. B. had been worked out. After the Second World War, over 80,000 refugees from the eastern regions stayed in Austria and were integrated into the Evangelical Church. In 1961, the Church received full legal freedom for the first time in the so-called Protestant Law (federal law on external legal relationships of the Evangelical Church). The law was enacted as a constitutional law.

organization

In the Evangelical Church A. u. H. B. the A. B. and H. B. churches are united for joint administration. As the Evangelical Church, the community is a corporation under public law (regulation in constitutional status ) and as the Evangelical Church A. u. H. B. legally recognized church since 1861 - both individual churches have this status. Church members A. u. H. B. are not natural persons , only the two member churches.

Vienna - Lutheran City Church (2) .JPG
Evangelical Church Vienna Dorotheergasse.JPG
Lutheran City Church and Reformed City Church in downtown Vienna

The seat of the administration is not at the Lutheran or the Reformed city ​​church in the inner city of Vienna ( Dorotheergasse ), but at the Evangelical Center in Währing (18th) at the observatory.

Oberkirchenrat

The Church Council A. u. H. B. based in Vienna . It includes: the bishop and the senior church councilors A. B. (for the A. B. Church) as well as the state superintendent and a secular senior church councilor H. B. (for the H. B. Church). The chairman is the chairman of the Oberkirchenrat A. B. On the tasks of the Oberkirchenrat A. u. H. B. include ordinances for the implementation of the church constitution and church laws of the two member churches as well as the regulation of religious instruction .

General Synod

The general synod consists of the members of the synod A. B. , seven representatives of the synod H. B. elected from among their number and one representative each of the Protestant youth of Austria, women’s work, the diakonia of Austria , the world mission and another branch of the church. The general synod has a working period of six years. Its central tasks include ecclesiastical legislation (such as the common church constitution), church fees and the recognition of church institutions and associations. The General Synod is also responsible for approving the joint hymn books of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches.

Superindendendencies

The church fellowship is divided into eight superindendentures, seven A. B. and one H. B.

See also the list of Protestant superintendents in Austria

activities

Evangelical press service

The Evangelischer Pressedienst Österreich (epd Ö) is a press agency belonging to the Evangelical Church A. u. H. B. works. The legal form is that of an independent church association based in Vienna. The editor-in-chief of epd Ö is Thomas Dasek.

Office for radio and television

In the public broadcaster ORF , church officials are represented with church service broadcasts on television and in the radio broadcasts Zwischenruf und Motive - Glaub und Doubt . Responsible for this is the Office for Radio and Television , whose head is Pastor Marco Uschmann. He is also editor-in-chief of the Protestant church newspaper SAAT - Evangelical newspaper for Austria , which appears monthly, as well as pastor for public relations.

Official Journal

The legal publication organ is the official gazette for the Evangelical Church in Austria .

Interdenominational and international cooperation

The two particular churches are represented separately in the World Council of Churches in Austria (ÖRKÖ). The church A. u. H. B. represents the two particular churches in the international World Council of Churches (World Council of Churches) .

With the Evangelical Methodist Church in Austria (Methodists, Wesleyans) , an independently recognized church that does not belong to the free churches in Austria , there is now a close church community that is practiced as pulpit and communion fellowship and in joint religious instruction.

Evangelical development cooperation

Evangelical Development Cooperation promotes and coordinates the work of its member organizations in the areas of development cooperation, disaster relief, world missions and ecumenical partnership work. The Evangelical Working Group for Development Cooperation includes the organizations Bread for the World Austria , Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe, Evangelical Working Group for World Mission and Kindernothilfe Austria .

literature

  • Bernhard Raupach : Explained Evangelical Austria, that is, continued historical message of the most distinguished fates of the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in the Ertz-Hertz-Hertzogthum Oesterreich / Gesammlet and put in order by Bernhard Raupach. 5 volumes. Felginer, Hamburg 1732-1744.
  • Harald Zimmermann (arrangement): The Protestant Church A. and H. B. in Austria . Herder, Vienna 1968.
  • BMLV, Research Department of the HGM (Ed.): 50 Years of Protestant Military Pastoral Care in the Armed Forces . Gra & Wis, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-902455-11-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 35-40 .
  2. ^ Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 45-48 .
  3. ^ A b Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 75-77 .
  4. ^ Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 110-115 .
  5. ^ Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 130-132 .
  6. ^ Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 144-148 .
  7. ↑ Statistics Austria: Population by religion and federal states 1951 to 2001 (accessed on January 16, 2009)
  8. ↑ Statistics Austria: Population at the beginning of the quarter since 2002 by federal state (accessed on October 12, 2019)
  9. ↑ Evangelical Church in Austria: Facts and Figures (accessed on February 27, 2020)
  10. ^ Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer (ed.): Evangelical Alliance in Vienna from the First Republic to the Nazi era (1920–45). Edition of the meeting minutes and programs (=  studies on the history of Christian movements of the Reformation tradition in Austria ; 2). VKW, Bonn 2010.
  11. ^ Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : Viennese Evangelical Professors of Theology in the Mirror of the Gau-Akten. Documentation on Beth, Egli, Entz, Hajek, Hoffmann, Koch, Kühnert, Opitz, Schneider and Wilke . In: Yearbook for the History of Protestantism in Austria, 116 (2000/01), pp. 191–225.
  12. ↑ Kurt Meier: Der Evangelische Kirchenkampf, Vol. 3. Göttingen 1984, ISBN 3-525-55552-0 , p. 549.
  13. ^ Peter Barton: Evangelical in Austria . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1987, ISBN 3-205-05096-7 , pp. 184-187 .
  14. ^ Constitution of the Evangelical Church A. u. H. B. in Austria ( Memento of March 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) , decided by the General Synod on June 16, 2012.
  15. ↑ a b § 1. (1) and (2) I. Protestant Law 1961 , Stf. Federal Law Gazette No. 182/1961; Legally recognized churches within the meaning of Article 15 of the Basic State Law of December 21, 1867, RGBl. No. 142.
  16. ↑ epd-Nachrichten ( Memento from April 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Evangelical Church in Austria
  17. ↑ Official Journal ( Memento from April 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Evangelisches Zentrum Wien (from 2006 online pdf)
  18. ^ Member churches / Europe / Austria , World Council of Churches, oikoumene.org

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 '53 "  N , 16 ° 19' 53.1"  E