6. Societies and Charities. Austria, like Germany, has countless Roman Catholic societies, institutions, and foundations. In almost every parish there are brotherhoods and societies far prayer, associations of both sexes and all ages, societies of priests, congregations of Mary, Franciscan Tertiaries, the Society of the Holy Family (with 25,000 families in the diocese of Lavant alone), societies for pilgrimage and for the building and adornment of churches, church music, home missions, brotherhoods of St. Michael, political Roman Catholic societies, and general Roman Catholic social organizations with 40,000 members in the single province of Upper Austria. Children and youth are cared for in protectories, kindergartens, orphan asylums, refectories, boarding-schools, refuges, training-schools for apprentices, and the like, while the great Roman Catholic school-union has about 40,000 members. Popular education is promoted by reading clubs and societies for the dissemination of educational literature, as well as by reading-rooms and libraries for the clergy and laity, while Roman Catholic science, literature, and art are advanced by the Leo-Gesellschaft, the Czech society Vlast, and by various periodicals. Countless institutions are devoted to charity, including almshouses, memorial foundations, poor gilds, hospitals of the most various characters, and funds for the feeding of the poor in monasteries. There are likewise insurance societies for the protection of masters, partners, apprentices, peasants, workmen, credit and other purposes of economic nature, but clubs of Roman Catholic students are still only in embryo.
7. Greek and Armenian Christians. There is a large number of Greek and Armenian Christians, some being Uniates and some non-Uniates. The Uniate Greeks, or Greek Catholics, form a special ecclesiastical province with the archdiocese of Lemberg and the suffragan diocese of Przemysl. The Uniates of the Armeno-Catholic rite also have an archbishopric of Lemberg, the archbishop likewise ruling over the non-Uniate Armenians of Galicia and Bukowina. The non-Uniate Greeks of the Greek Oriental rite have a patriarchate at Carlowitz with ten bishoprics or eparchies, of which seven are in Hungary, one in Czernowitz (Bukowina), one at Hermannstadt (Transylvania), and one at Sebenico (for Dalmatia and Istria), in addition to the community at Vienna. The patriarch is chosen by the national congress of Servia, which must remain in session sufficiently long for its candidate to receive the sanction of the emperor, after which the formal consecration takes place. The non-Uniate Armenians of the Armeno-Oriental rite control the Mekhitarist monastery in Vienna (see MEKHITARISTS) and are accordingly subject to the Uniate Armenian archbishop of Lemberg. The Old Catholics have three parishes at Vienna, Warnsdorf, and Ried, and in 1902 built two new churches at Schonlinde and Blottendorf. The Philippones, or Lippowanians, expelled from Russia, have formed scattered communities in Galicia and Bukowina.
II. The Protestant Churches:
1. The Evangelical Church and its Organization. Austria
is essentially Roman Catholic, and the number of Evangelical Protestants
in the Empire has declined from a tenth of the population at the time of
their greatest expansion in the sixteenth century to a fiftieth. A patent
of toleration was issued in their favor on Oct. 13, 1781, and the Protestant
patent of Apr. 8, 1861, conferred upon them full equality before the law.
At the same time the political, civil, and academic disabilities of the
non-Catholics were removed, and they were no longer required to contribute
to the support of another Church, while they were now permitted to adorn
their churches, to celebrate their feasts, and to exercise pastoral care.
On the day after the patent was issued (Apr. 9), a preliminary church constitution
was drawn up, but one which was substituted on Jan. 6 (23), 1866, canceled
important rights of self-government, and from this the present constitution
of Dec. 9, 1891, differs only in minor details. The Evangelical Church,
divided into parishes, seniories, superintendencies, and synods, is unrestricted
in respect to its confession, its books, the creation of societies for
ecclesiastical and educational purposes, and its relations to foreign religious
bodies. It forms a national Church, of which the emperor may be regarded
as the bishop, his prerogatives in its control being distinguished from
the corresponding functions of the Roman Catholic German sovereigns in
degree, not in kind. His position is due, however, to his constitutional
relation to the Evangelical Church, and not, as in the case of the German
princes, to his ecclesiastical relation. The lawful administration of Evangelical
funds, as well as revenues and assessments, is guaranteed by the State.
The Austrian Evangelical Church is divided into ten superintendencies, six of the Augsburg Confession, three of the Helvetic Confession, and one mixed. Those of the Augsburg Confession are: (1) Vienna, with the seniories of Lower Austria, Triest, Styria, the region south of the Drave in Carinthia, and the region north of the Drave and in the Gmund valley in Carinthia; (2) Upper Austria, with an upper and a lower seniory; (3) Western Bohemia; (4) Eastern Bohemia; (5) Asch (also in Bohemia); (6) Moravia and Silesia, with the seniories of Brunn, Zauchtl, and Silesia. The superintendencies of the Helvetic Confession are: (1) Vienna; (2) Bohemia, with the seniories of Prague, Chrudim, Podiebrad, and Czaslau; and