Josephinism

Josephinism derived from Emperor Joseph II, called the consequent subordination of social affairs under the State Administration of Austria according to the principles of enlightened absolutism.

A distinction Josephinism in a broader sense than total social phenomenon from Josephinism in the narrower sense as a package of measures state-directed religious self-sufficiency.

• 4.1 prehistory
• 4.2 Josephinian church reform
• 4.3 New Towns
• 4.4 Supply Principle

The general Josephinism

The Joseph II, with the slogan " Everything for the people; nothing by the people " reforms set to the factory are considered a " grasp revolution from above ". His actions took Joseph following the rationalist philosopher Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, and Jacob Thomasius.

In order to become more effective interventions, which he describes as the " benefit and the good races of the larger time " understood he reinforced. , The control and the bureaucracy So the reporting system or the system of house numbers was introduced under his rule. On the other hand, it was Joseph II, the end of serfdom initiated with the subjects of patent in 1781 and thus in the later legend of " Joseph, the peasant liberators" became. He installed the first police surveillance and spy system, forbade busks for girls, introduced the leash for dogs and abolished the civilian death penalty - from utilitarian considerations, since he recognized the delinquent workers, for example, as a ship's Overcoat on the Danube.

His utilitarianism led him to build instead of magnificent castles hospitals like the General Hospital with " Fool's Tower " in Vienna.

The special Josephinism

Precursor ideas of Josephinism go back to Austria until the 13th century, the administration of church property was perceived primarily in the 16th century as a problem. In the second half of the 18th century the ideas of Febronianism that a state church close, as it was realized in France with the Gallican circulated. State Chancellor Count Wenzel Anton Kaunitz, who directed the Austrian policy in 1753, was a personal friend of the Enlightenment Voltaire and an advocate of Gallican. Maria Theresa's court physician Gerard van Swieten, a Jansenist, was president of the Imperial Commission of Education. At the University had the Enlightenment Karl Anton von Martini, Joseph of Sun Rock and Paul Joseph Riegger of influential advocate; there, the legal basis was created for Joseph's idea of ​​a state church in his kingdom.

According to natural law, the main purpose of a state is the greatest happiness of his subjects. It looks alone in the religion of the institution which can counteract by binding the conscience of the obstacles as to the negligence of duties and the lack of mutual goodwill of the people. Consequently, the State sees in religion the main factor of education: "The Church is a department of the police, who have to serve the goals of the state, to the enlightenment of the people is gone so far as to allow its replacement by the secular police. " ( sun Rock ).

The scholar Riegger led the dominance of the state from on the Church of the theory of an original contract (" pactum unionis " ), in the sense of the government practice a certain ecclesiastical jurisdiction on behalf of all individuals who " Jura circa sacra ." Another scholar (Franz Xaver Gmeiner ) formulated the theory that any legislation that is contrary to the interests of the state, the law of nature, and thus contradicts the will of Christ; have, consequently, the Church does have the right to enact such laws, nor the state could accept them.

Kaunitz reduced these principles to the statement: " The sovereignty of the state over the church, on the whole ecclesiastical legislation and practice, which is developed and practiced by the people, and what the Church otherwise owes to the approval and sanction of the secular power. As a result, the state must always have the power to limit, modify, or make previously made ​​concessions reversed whenever it make the reason of state, abuses or changes in circumstances required. " Joseph II brought these intentions to government principles and treated the ecclesiastical institutions as public affairs of the state.

Maria Theresa, the mother of her co-regent Joseph II, Josephinism was well reserved against. In State of canon law perspective, Josephinism namely the attempt to represent the spiritual authority of the Church entirely at the service of the monarchy. This collided with the fundamental independence of the Church, which temporarily is indeed willing to compromise (eg, by a Concordat ), but do not want to give up this self-understanding.

The reforms

Reform extended firstly to the Catholic Church within the Austrian territory with the goal of establishing a state church. Dioceses, religious orders and foundations were subject to far sometimes overlapping each other a variety of foreign claims. The Pope and all other ecclesiastical ordinances were placed under the imperial consent ( placet ); Decisions about marriage obstacles was responsible to the bishops; Relations of the bishops with Rome and the religious orders with their generals abroad were forbidden, partly for reasons of political economy. 1783 during a stay in Rome Joseph threatened with the creation of an independent state church; he abolished the dependence of the papal authority, and by a Pflichteid he tied the bishops to the state. The acceptance of papal titles and the presence at the German University in Rome were banned; Pavia in a German University was created to compete with the Roman.

Furthermore, this includes also the transformation of the judiciary. The mayor was removed from their hitherto unrestricted lower courts on July 22, 1765 to transfer them on May 4, 1766 counsel with legal training.

The principle of tolerance

The Toleration Act of 1781 granted first (October 13 ) the Greek Orthodox believers and Protestants the free exercise of religion and civil rights. Thus, the establishment of Protestant Toleranzbethäuser was approved (without tower and the road leading input); also were now children of Protestants to study at the university. The permission for conversion, however, was limited again; from 1787 a conversion Williger before the step from the Catholic Church had to undergo a 6 -week teaching faith.

On November 2, 1782 Patent of Tolerance opened for Jews, especially for the many Jews in the eastern countries of the monarchy, new opportunities for development and found in the contemporaneous Jewish Enlightenment flow Haskalah lively response.

The Masonic Joseph II's Edict of 11 December 1785 threw the boxes of meticulous state control, an Austrian Grand Lodge was established, many Viennese lodges merged or discontinued the Masonic activity, the number of boxes in the crown lands was limited to one, which in turn hierarchically the Grand Lodge should be under. By Joseph as rapturously - subversive respected, potentially conspiratorial groups that differed from the regular higher degrees of the Grand Lodge, as the gold and Rosicrucians, the Asiatic Brethren and the Klerikat were implicitly forbidden. Joseph Masonic patent in which Freemasonry is called " De Spell " disappointed and dismayed his former party -goers. It can also be seen in the context of Verschwörungsobsession that was unleashed with the discovery of the Illuminati order (1784 ) in Europe.

The principle of centralism

These concessions were accompanied by an innumerable number of minute formal religious precepts. So Joseph II decreed on August 23, 1784, the closing of all inner-city cemeteries for reasons of " hygiene". The funeral rite should henceforth be made waiving a firm 's coffin through a reusable collapsible coffin community. This injunction he pulled on the appeal in the population after a short time back.

To counter the arisen with the Counter-Reformation escalating pomp, Joseph II issued regulations up to the number and length of the candles, the type of sermons, prayers and chants. All superfluous altars and all ostentatious garments and pictures were removed; various passages in the Breviary should be taped over. No dogmatic issues should be discussed in the pulpit; Rather, it was expected public pronouncements and practical advice about the field order. "Our brother, the sacristan ," Frederick the Great called Joseph, which he regarded as the creator of a purified worship.

Dissolution of the monasteries and religious fund

Prehistory

To support the Counter-Reformation, promoted Bishop Melchior Khlesl with support Ferdinand II, the presence of several orders in and around Vienna, and existing orders built their monasteries in the Baroque style. Start of the monastery was the initiative started in 1603 remodeling of the Franciscan church. It became a veritable Austria on " Monastery Boom " By supporting loyal noble families. In the residence city of Vienna with its suburbs and suburbs, there were 25 monasteries in 1660, which grew to 125 in 1700. In 1765, there were 7,200 monks in Lower Austria, 1,500 in Vienna. Many start-ups doped generally weak and the population fell by begging to load. In Vienna itself (now Inner City ) there was before 1782 13 men and seven convents, which then three men and six congregations of women were lifted. In the vicinity of 18 monasteries were dissolved.

The basic idea Josephinian - Reduction of the monasteries and for multiplication of parishes - was already out of his standing in the tradition of Baroque Catholicism grandfather Charles VI. shared. Under Empress Maria Theresa began with appropriate measures. 1751, it announced a large Remedur of religious and monastic system whose basic tendency was to take the monasteries and the privileged position and see the Conventual as citizens and subjects of the state ( state church ). Furthermore, it was even then trying to limit the number of monks. The professed age was raised to 24 years. From 1767 monasteries were allowed to take novices only as a replacement for deceased or terminally ill members of the Order. In Lombardy there were 80 before dissolution of the monasteries in 1780. In the core countries we began in 1773, when Maria Theresa reluctantly dissolved the Jesuit offices in Austria after the dissolution of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV. The Order thus lost 4 houses in Vienna.

Josephine church reform

Joseph regarded the state as administrator of the worldly goods of the church and put this idea into a law, which summed up the assets of all churches, religious buildings and equipment of its territory in a great fortune for the various requirements of practical service in a so-called " religious fund ". The sacred, the entire ecclesial possession, chapels, abbeys and pens and all sacred ornaments were transferred to a new property.

Joseph went also against the monasteries, which he regarded as " sources of superstition and religious fanaticism ". Their numbers had grown in the Austrian hereditary lands and Hungary in 1770 to 2,163 with 45,000 members. The waiver decision covered 1782 first contemplatives who considered the emperor as " useless ". Since 1783 then, due to the idea of ​​religious fund, the so-called " wealthy prelates " The main objective of its repeal measures. A journey of Pius VI. to Vienna in March 1782 was inconclusive. From 915 monasteries ( 762 male, 153 female monasteries ) of 1780 in the German- Austria ( with Bohemia, Moravia and Galicia ) were obtained 388. Through these measures, the " religious fund " grew to 35 million guilders.

The abolition of monasteries and hermitages caused no growth of the fund, and the abolition of the Order of 1783 has also shown financial losses. Their property was devoted half pedagogical purposes and the other half transferred " with all their ecclesiastical privileges, income and goods " in a new "Only Charitable Connection" which had the character of both an order and a charitable institution and end social distress should.

New churches

The abolition of branch churches and chapels allowed Joseph the creation of new parishes. The state also claimed the formation of the clergy and its use in the communities in order to ensure both the service and the social welfare. Each local church should be attainable over a distance of no more than one hour for each member of the congregation; for each 700 souls a church should be available.

Supply principle

Joseph particular a fixed sum for pensions of former monks and for salaries of parish holders. Foundations without a pastoral activity, income in larger churches and by all canons of a locally set number also fell to the religious fund, the income was distributed to the pastorate owners. For the equipment of the dioceses a maximum amount has been set, the surplus accrued to the religious fund, as well as the income of vacancies.

The religious fund had to pay for the cost of the establishment of clergy under state control, for general seminars and supporting the young clergyman, the Institute for the practical training of priests and the support of retired priests.

The implementation of the Josephine reforms and the abolition of the Order met with resistance among the people. The Design of Measurement and altars, oratories, chapels and religious, processions, pilgrimages and devotions were restricted by the new service rule.

The transfer of the church property into a single fund was practically impossible. In the case of the monastery's possessions she put a big loss Represents the ability of each Church and Foundation had publicly stated to become a public bond and be invested in the fund religion.

A tax was levied on church property, which had escaped the secularization. Since 1788 she has been imposed on the still existing orders and the secular clergy.

General seminars

The " education reform " Maria Theresa, diamond bush " curriculum " in 1776 and the introduction of Riechers "Handbook of Canon Law, " paved the way for the creation of theological General seminars. Joseph founded twelve: in Vienna, Graz, Prague, Olomouc, Bratislava, plague, Innsbruck, Freiburg, Lviv ( two for Galicia - Greek and Latin Rite ) -, lions and Pavia.

1783 all convent schools and episcopal seminars concluded in the framework of the " monastery storm ". The " General Meetings " were the universities connected as the Seminary, however, had their own theological courses. Five years of study were carried out in an episcopal educational institution ( priest's house ) or a monastery. The basic rules of the seminar directors were liberal, according to the rationalist theology of the state. A sharp opposition grew particularly on the side of ecclesiastical foundations and monasteries. The novices, educated at his own expense in the General seminars, many lost their religious vocation.