Greek Orthodoxy in Austria

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The Orthodox Church is a unified church community (communio ecclesiarum) , but it is divided into a number of sovereign ( autocephalic ) churches of equal value. In Austria, the Greek Orthodox Church is understood to mean those churches of Orthodoxy whose tradition is Greek-Byzantine.

It is currently represented by two representatives. Both communities - as well as representatives of other Orthodox churches in Austria, the term oriental Greek church in Austria are recognized - organize on behalf of the Metropolis of Austria , which the religious education concerns and other public affairs. They are independently represented in the Orthodox Bishops' Conference in Austria .

There are a total of around 19,000 Greek Orthodox believers in Austria.

Greco-Oriental Church - Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

The much larger group in Austria "Greco-oriental" called Community of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Opel ( Greek Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο Κωνσταντινουπόλεως Ikoumenikó Patriarcheío Konstandinoupóleos , even Church of Constantinople Opel ). The religious community belongs to Eastern Orthodoxy . The head of the faithful is Bartholomäus I , diocesan metropolitan is Archbishop Arsenios Kardamakis .

The Church of Constantinople in Austria is organized today in the diocese of the Metropolis of Austria - Exarchate for Hungary and Central Europe with the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (Greek Church ) . This church was founded in Vienna around 1709. She originally represented the representatives of the Ottoman Empire at the Viennese court, with the recognition of the non-Catholic denominations with the tolerance patent of Emperor Josef II from 1782 also those Byzantine believers who came from the Austrian territories on the military border and their hinterland. From the mother church of St.. George on Hafnersteig that formed soon after 1782 Community of the Holy. Trinity at the meat market , which represented the Austrians, while at St. George the Ottomans were represented. Both of them jointly acquired shares in the cemetery at Sankt Marxer Friedhof , and in 1878 they received a share in the central cemetery .

Church services were held in Greek in both parishes, followed by further splits, the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1860 and the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1906 , two independent churches from ancient times. Nevertheless, according to the Federal Law External Legal Relationships of the Greco-Oriental Church of 1967 , these churches are grouped together as the Greco-Oriental Church in Austria .

With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the Greek communities in Austria no longer wanted to be subordinate to the Orthodox centers now located in Romania, so a metropolis for Austria and Hungary was established in 1924 , but it did not last long; it was not established permanently until 1963 and represented the Eastern bloc countries as an exarchate . The Church of the Holy Trinity has since enjoyed the status of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The communities in Austria, Hungary and other countries of the former Kuk monarchy are subordinate to it.

The two original mother congregations, St. George and the Holy Trinity, are equally recognized corporations under public law , and since the amendment of the law in 2011 also the Metropolis itself. St. George is subordinate to the Metropolis, but represents the Greek Orthodox Church in ecumenical terms Council of Churches in Austria . The Metropolis of Austria, as the only recognized diocese so far, also represents the Austrian Greek-Oriental general Orthodoxy , as well as the Orthodox Bishops' Conference in Austria towards the state.

The church has around 18,000 believers in Austria, 10,000 of them in Vienna. The other parishes are in Carinthia, Linz, Graz, Innsbruck and Bregenz.

Greek Orthodox Church - Patriarchate of Antioch (Antiochian Rum Orthodox Church)

The Patriarchate of Antioch (and the entire East, also Rum Orthodox Church , Greek Πατριαρχεῖον Ἀντιοχείας Patriarchíon Andiochías , Arabic بطريركية أنطاكية وسائر المشرق للروم الأرثوذكس) belongs to Oriental Orthodoxy . The mostly Arabic-native-speaking believers from the Syrian region report to the Patriarch John X. Originally, the services of this church were held in the liturgical languages ​​Greek and Syrian, but since the 20th century in Arabic.

The believers in Austria belong to the metropolitan area of ​​Germany and Central Europe with their seat in Berlin, under the leadership of Metropolitan Isaak Barakat . They have been organized since about the 1980s, the first parish has existed since 2002. The religious community is not officially recognized for the time being , that is, it is organized as a "private" association. The Constantinopolitan Metropolis of Austria is currently taking over the legal representation. The Berlin Rum Orthodox Metropolitan is an independent member of the Orthodox Bishops' Conference in Austria .

The Austrian Rum Orthodox are under the pastoral care of Archpriest Michail Pappas, the community comprised around 1000 members before 2015, mainly in Vienna. The Viennese parishioners celebrate the service in the Mother of God Church in Augarten / Gaußplatz in Leopoldstadt (2nd district). There is a second church in Innsbruck.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem.
  2. ^ Institute for Theology and History of the European East, University of Vienna: The Greek Orthodox Congregation in Vienna . Lecture script 2004 (no longer accessible 2011: PDF  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , 35 KB).@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.univie.ac.at  
  3. ↑ Greek Orthodox Church in Vienna ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Greek Embassy in Vienna (accessed December 30, 2011, link no longer available 2016).  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.griechische-botschaft.at
  4. ↑ Since after the 2001 census, the creed is no longer officially recorded statistically, there are no exact numbers of believers unless the religious community itself publishes them.
  5. ↑ To Grigorios Larentzakis , Chair for Orthodox and Ecumenical Theology, Divine Service at the Leech Church / University Church , Greek Orthodox Church Community Graz , Ecumenical Forum Styria
  6. ^ Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. Nicodemus C. Schnabel, on prooriente.at (accessed December 10, 2016).
  7. ↑ New Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. religion.orf.at, December 18, 2012.
  8. ↑ a b The Rum Orthodox Church of Antioch. rum-orthodox.de (accessed December 1, 2016).