VIII. Protestantism in tin Austrian States. — In the various states governed by the house of Hapsburg both the Lutheran and the Reformed Reformation spread with great rapidity. Great enthusiasm was awakened by Luther's Reformation in Bohemia, where deep-rooted opposition to Rome still pervaded the masses of the people. Both the Bohemian Brethren and the i alixtines entered into communication with the Ger- man Reformer. Though a full union between Luther and the Brethren, who had never returned to the
communion with Lome, was not effected, there was a mutual recognition as evangelical Christians; and the Brethren, whose number now increased again rapidly, and who in 1533 handed in their confession of faith to
Ferdinand, helped to strengthen the reformatory host in Europe. Vmong the Calixtines, so large a number adopted the doctrines of Luther that an assembly of the Estates in 1524 declared in fax or of a continuation "I tin- reformation begun by Huss in the way si t forth by Luther. Ai ill. time of the Smalkald war. a majority of the Bohemians were attached to the Reformation; i he Estates denied to I ing Ferdinand the aid of their t roups, and united with I he elector. When they had finally to submit, the king gave orders that in future only Catholics and Utraquists Bhould be tolerated in
the royal domain-, and a large number of the Breth- ren deemed ii best to emigrate to Poland and Russia. In the last year- ol his lite Ferdinand showed a great) r moderation towards Protestants, and hi- bod .Maximil- ian II was even, by Protest an ts as well as Catholics, regarded a- a secret friend of the Reformation; but he was unable to protect the Prot< scants of his stati - against the persecutions instigated by the Jesuits, In 1575 the ( 'alixtines and Brethren united and presented a common confession ol faitb, and reo h ed from Maximilian an oral pledge of recognition. In L609 the king was forced to give to the adherents of the Confession ol 1575 e.pial rights with the Catholics; but practically the
persecutions c inued. When the Estates of Bohemia
n fused to recognise Ferdinand as their king, and elected the Protestant elector of the Palatinate. Frederick V. the Thirty Years' War broke out. in the course of which appeared the fatal decree of ICl'7. thai hit to the people only the alternative of becoming Catholics or leaving the country. Notwithstanding the rigorous persecution, which lasted for more than a hundred years, several thousand Protestants maintained themselves se- cretly both in Bohemia ami Moravia; but to-day nine- ty-six per cent, of the Bohemians and ninety-five per cent, of the Moravians are connected with the Church of Rome.
In the southern provinces of Austria the Reforma- tion likewise spread at an early period. Luther's writ- ings were eagerly read in Vienna as early as 1520. In 1528 more than one half the nobility of the archduchy of Austria were evangelical. The Estates demanded freedom of religion in lob.' at [nnspruck, in 1548 at Augsburg, and in I55C at Vienna, and bishop Nauuea, of Vienna, intended to resign because the government tolerated the appointment of Lutheran professors at the University of Vienna. Under Maximilian the Estates called the Lutheran theologian David Chytraeus to Vi- enna to compile a Jin"/.- of Religion and a Church Agen- da, and their use was sanctioned by Maximilian after long reluctance. Lower Austria was at once almost wholly won over to Protestantism; but the numerous and bitter doctrinal controversies of the Protestants made it easy for the Jesuits to enforce a COunter-refor- mation. Gradually stringent laws demanded here, as in Bohemia, either a return to the Catholic religion or emigration; but how generally the people continued to be secretly attached to Protestantism became apparent when the victorious Hungarians and Tran-vlvanians compelled the government, in 1606, to promise n ligi0U8 toleration. Whole towns at once returned to Protes- tantism, and in 1610 the emperor .Matthias had to rec- ognise the equal rights of the churches. The reviving hopes of Protestantism were, however, cruelly destroyed by the Thirty Years' War. which led to the utter i \- tirpation of the Protestant congregations. In Austria, as in all other countries, the Reformers paid a special attention to the promotion of education; and for the ignorant South Slavic tribes in particular, where Pri- mus Truber displayed a remarkable literary and re- formatory act ivity, the Reformation promised to lie the beginning of a national literature and of an sera of civ- ilization. With the suppression of the Reformation, the sia\> relapsed into the utmost ignorance, from which only now an efficient system ol State education is gradually extricating them. How thoroughly Protes- tantism has been eradicated in these provinces, in most of which it constituted at one tune a majority of the population, may be seen from the fact that at present
l here are hardly any Protestants in Carinihia and the I \ rol. and that they are only pi r c. in. of the pop- ulation in Slyria, two in Upper and Lower Austria, five in Carinihia. and fifteen in Silesia.
The number of Hungarian students at Wittenberg at the time when Luther began his reformation was so una! that his reformatory views became at once widely known in Hungary, and found many friends. \- earl] as 1518 several adherent- of the Reformation were