Austria: Encyclopedia II - Austria

While northern and central Germany was the origin of the Reformation, Austria (and Bavaria) were the heart of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th and 17th century, when the absolute monarchy of Habsburg imposed a strict regime to maintain Catholicism's power and influence among Austrians. Despite this establishment of Catholicism as the predominant Christian religion (Protestants have throughout Austria's history remained a relatively small group), Austria's history as a multinational state has made it necessary for Habsburg rulers to deal with a heterogeneous religious population. Religious freedom was declared a constitutional right as early as 1867 and Austria-Hungary was home of numerous religions beside Roman Catholicism such as Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Russian, and Bulgarian Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims (Austria neighboured the Turkish empire for centuries), Mormons and both Calvinists and Lutheran Protestants.

Still Austria remained largely influenced by Catholicism. After 1918 First Republic Catholic leaders such as Theodor Innitzer and Ignaz Seipel took leading positions within or close to the Austrian Government and increased their influence during the time of the Austrofascism – Catholicism was treated much like a state religion by dictators Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg. Although Catholic leaders welcomed the Germans in 1938 during the Anschluss of Austria into Germany, Austrian Catholicism stopped its support of Nazism later on and many former Religious public figures became involved with the resistance during the Third Reich. After 1945 a stricter secularism was imposed in Austria and religious influence on politics has nearly vanished.

As of the end of the 20th century about 73% of Austria's population are registered as Roman Catholic, while about 5% consider themselves Protestants. Both these numbers have been on the decline for decades, especially Roman Catholicm has suffered an increasing number of seceders of the church. This is due partly to child sexual abuse scandals by priests as well as the alleged unwillingness of the Roman Catholic Church to implement reforms. In addition Austrians Catholics are obliged to pay a mandatory tax (calculated by income – ca 1%) to the Austrian Roman Catholic Church, which acts as another incentive to leave the church.

About 12% of the population declare that they do not belong to any church or religious community. Of the remaining people, about 180,000 are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church and about 7,300 are Jewish. It has to be noted that the Austrian Jewish Community of 1938 – Vienna alone counted more than 200,000, of which solely 4,000 to 5,000 remained after the Second World War. The influx of Eastern Europeans, especially from the former Yugoslav nations, Albania and particularly from Turkey largely contributed to a substantial Muslim minority in Austria – around 300,000 are registered as members of various Muslim communities. The numbers of people adhering to the Islam has increased largely during the last years and is expected to grow in the future. Buddhism, which was legally recognized as a religion in Austria in 1983, enjoys widespread acceptance and has a following of 20,000 (10,402 at the 2001 census).

A 2005 survey among 8,000 people in various European countries showed that Austrians are still among the countries with the strongest belief in God. 84% of all Austrians do state they believe in God, with only Poland (97%), Portugal (90%) and Russia (87%) in front of the countries surveyed. This is a much larger figure than the European average of 71% or Germany with 67%. [3]