# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1861_S245
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

An Evangelical Church Constitution for Austria. 245

senate, but that a rejoinder was at once sent in under date of March 1,
which clearly and thoroughly set forth the good right of the Lutherans. The
senate's answer to this second petition is still to be awaited; it is to be hoped
it will not again be dismissive in the way the first was;
meanwhile the Lutherans are resolved to contend for their
cause to the last instance. (Freimund.)

An Evangelical Church Constitution for Austria.

At last the Emperor Franz Joseph has fulfilled the promises which he
gave to the Evangelicals first in 1848, then in 1851, and for the third time on
October 20, 1860. The patent of April 8, 1861, grants to the Lutherans
and Reformed of the German-Slavic crown lands complete equality of rights
with the Catholics "in all directions of civil
and political life." The Evangelicals are now called Evangelicals
and no longer Acatholics, and the Slavic clergy are called Pfarrer and
no longer Pastoren, which among the Slavs means a stepfather. And
as with the titles, so with the rights. They may have bells and steeples, hold
solemnities according to their faith, exercise the cure of souls unhindered,
use religious and theological books and Bibles, form societies and
enter into connection with similar societies abroad — for example the Gustavus Adolphus Society —
attend foreign universities, call foreign teachers
and preachers, found schools, institutions and new congregations,
all as their confession requires. Besides this the emperor promises to support their
institutions, churches and church servants out of state funds,
as the dignity and urgency of the matter demands. Beyond the sums
hitherto granted he has provisionally set aside 40,600 fl. for this purpose,
and the poor clergy in Bohemia and Moravia now have the prospect that
in the course of years they will at least be delivered from the most pressing want.
On the other side, the Catholic clergy have had their trade shut down,
so that they can no longer oppress the Protestant congregations, or hinder their rise by cunning and
force and drive them into their own sheepfold; they may not even
demand from them, as hitherto, the stole fees and other dues,
unless they can show a particular legal title. They
must now keep within their bounds, since they have no more precedence.

For Austria this is an astonishing event. This Austria,
which put down the Reformation by force, kept the Protestants
under the press, waged the Thirty Years' War as a war
of religion, twice drove the evangelical Salzburgers out of the country and into
misery; this Austria, which counted among the most sacred traditions
of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine the protection and exaltation of the Roman
Catholic church, which in recent times brought honor to its title of Apostolic Majesty
by the conclusion of the concordat, and