RELIGIONS--ROMAN CATHOLICS--GREEK
CHURCH--ARMENIANS--PROTESTANTS--SOCINIANS--JEWS--MAHOMETANS.
All the sects of the Christian religion are to be found in Austria,
and the Jews, Armenians, and Greeks, are more or less numerous in the
different provinces. Such a diversity of religious opinions cannot
fail to have a considerable influence on the minds and manners of the
inhabitants.
The Roman Catholic is the religion both of the sovereign and of the
state. The great majority of the inhabitants of Austria profess this
religion, which was long the only one tolerated in the provinces
composing this empire. Joseph II. however, sensible of the injustice
of proscribing persons on account of their religious opinions, issued
an edict granting toleration to the professors of all creeds. Since
that time the different Christian sects, the Jews and even the
Mahometans, have enjoyed liberty of conscience in the Austrian
dominions.
The archbishop of Vienna is the head of the civil, and the archbishop
of St. Pölten, of the military clergy. The latter alone has a right to
recommend to the emperor’s nomination, persons qualified for military
ecclesiastical appointments, such as the chaplaincies of regiments and
fortresses. The archbishop and bishops are all members of the
metropolitan chapter. On the death of one of their number, the chapter
has a right to propose a successor for the nomination of the emperor,
who approves or rejects as he thinks proper, without allowing any sort
of interference on the part of the pope. Hence several of the sees are
at present vacant, as the government has found it convenient to
appropriate the large revenues attached to many of them to the
exigencies of the state.
It would be difficult to state with accuracy the number of Catholics
in Austria; but so much is certain, that they compose at least
two-thirds of the population of the empire. The Protestants are not
numerous, excepting in Bohemia on the frontiers of Saxony.
With the exception of Russia and Turkey, no country in Europe contains
so many professors of the Greek faith, as the dominions of Austria.
Some of these are termed united, as they acknowledge the pope for
their supreme head, while others have refused to become thus united
with the Catholics. They are chiefly to be met within Galicia,
Hungary, Croatia, and Transylvania.
The Armenian christians have chosen Galicia in preference for their
new abode; but there are some also in Hungary and Transylvania. Almost
all of them are engaged in commerce. These people are remarkable for
their activity and industry, and such of them as do not make a
profession of the arts or trade, pursue agriculture with truly
laudable perseverance. Almost all those who have settled in Hungary
have adopted the latter: and the pains they have bestowed on a soil
naturally excellent, have been rewarded with such abundant crops, that
almost all of them have acquired in a short time a competence and even
wealth.
Since the time of Joseph II. the Protestants, both Lutherans and
Calvinists, have enjoyed the free exercise of their religion in the
imperial dominions. The number of the former is estimated at about one
million and a half, and that of the latter two millions and a half.
Bohemia, Hungary, and Moravia are the countries in which they are most
numerous. Almost all of them are remarkable for their industry.
There are many other religious sects in Austria. The province of
Transylvania alone is computed to contain upwards of forty-five
thousand Socinians or Unitarians, who enjoy the same rights and
privileges as the Catholics and Protestants. Most of these Socinians
are Hungarians or Szeklers, and their number throughout Hungary is so
considerable that they have founded one hundred and sixty churches.
Hungary has also afforded an asylum to the Mennonites and Anabaptists,
but though they are tolerably numerous there, as well as in
Transylvania, still they form but a small part of the population of
those two countries.
The Jews in the Austrian states are not, as we have seen, so numerous
as it might be imagined. They amount to about three hundred thousand.
In order to make real citizens of them, the sovereigns conferred on
them the same prerogatives with the rest of their subjects. This wise
measure, however, has not excited in them any genuine love for their
country, or inspired them with the least zeal for the welfare of the
state. The Jews, as in the other countries of Europe, live insulated
amidst the nation to which they belong; and continue to form a
separate people, who never will mingle with any other race. Self is
their ruling principle, and private interest their sole study. Without
love to their sovereign, without concern for their country, they are
indifferent to every thing excepting money, which is the god of their
idolatry. Leading, wherever they are found, a wandering life, they
consider themselves rather as travellers than as citizens, whose
fortunes are dependent on the prosperity of their native land.
The Austrian sovereigns, after conferring upon them the rights of
citizens, deemed it but fair that the Jews should, like all the other
classes of society, furnish soldiers for the public defence. This just
requisition they resisted, and it was necessary to employ force to
compel submission to this general measure. It was not without great
difficulty that fifteen hundred were levied in Galicia: some of them
served in the ranks, and others in the artillery and wagon-train.
The active commerce subsisting between Austria and Turkey, brings a
great number of Turks into the former empire. All or nearly all of
them are merchants. The advantages which they enjoy gradually induce
them to settle in the country; but they are not yet sufficiently
numerous to have mosques. These Turks therefore are content to
practise their religion within their own houses; and when they do
meet, it is not so much to worship God as to smoke and chat together.
The coffee-houses of the Prater, and of Leopoldstadt, at Vienna, are
commonly full of these foreigners, who carelessly seated on handsome
divans, surrounded by sherbet and other liquors, and smoking long
cigars, exhibit a picture of oriental manners amidst a European
population. The stranger is equally struck by the splendour of their
dress, the fashion of which is so different from that of the close
garments of Europe.