RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Austria Authority
and the Gustav Adolf Verein. These funds are devoted to many purposes, such as general ecclesiastical interests, the support of ecclesiastical officials and their widows and orphans, candidates for the ministry and theological students, general educational objects, teachers with their widows and orphans, religious instruction, charities, and burials. The Evangelical Church likewise provides pensions for superannuated pastors and teachers, as well as for their widows and orphans.
Societies and charitable organizations are extremely numerous among the Evangelicals of Austria. Women's clubs exist in many city congregations, and institutions for those intending to be confirmed are also popular. Orphan asylums exist at Biala, Bielitz, Goisern, Graz, Krabschitz, Russic, Stanislau, Teleci, Ustron, Weikersdorf (Gallneukirchen), Waiern, and Vienna (St. Polten). Summer homes are provided by the Erster Evangelischer Unterstiitzungsverein fur Kinder, while the Oberosterreichischer Evangelischer Verein fur Innere Mission cares for the sick, 6. Societies maintaining in Gallneukirchen, in and addition to a house of deaconesses, Charities, asylums for the sick and insane, as well as homes for convalescents. The deaconesses trained at Gallneukirchen find employment at Gablonz, Graz, Hall, Marienbad, Meran, and Vienna, while in Aussig and Teplitz they have been placed in charge of the municipal hospital after the expulsion of the nuns. Closely connected with this society is that of the Verein fur die Evangelische Diakonissensache in Wien with its home, summer sanitarium, and hospital. In 1901 a third house of deaconesses was established at Prague, and a number of other Evangelical homes and hospitals also exist. Provision is made for the dead and their survivors by the Evangelischer Leichenbestattungsverein in Vienna and by the Sterbekasse fur Evangelische Pfarrer und Lehrer Oesterreichs. Educational institutions abound, while devotion is fostered by libraries of various types, " evenings at home," church concerts, Sunday-schools, Young Men's Christian Associations, and young women's societies. The Czech " Comenius Society," the " Evangelical Literary Society of the Augsburg Confession," and the " Comenium," as well as the German Evangelischer Volksbildungverein, the first three at Prague and the last at Teschen, are literary in character. The only scientific Evangelical magazine, however, is the Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft fur die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Oesterreich, founded in 1879 for the investigation and presentation of the history of Evangelical Protestantism. Among other Protestant denominations, State recognition is accorded only to the Moravians, beginning with 1880. Baptists, Irving- 7- Minor ites, Mennonites, Methodists, Congre- Denomina- gationalists, the Scotch New Free tions and Church in Vienna, and the Free Evan- Non-Chris- gelical Church in Bohemia are retians. garded as undenominational, and are allowed to worship only in private. The Jews are now represented in all provinces of Austria, although previous to 1848 no Jew was
allowed to reside in Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Istria, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg. The Mohammedans in the army thus far have places of worship only in the barracks.
With regard to the distribution of various confessions in Austria, it may be said that the Greek Uniates are found chiefly in Galicia, the Armenian Uniates in Galicia and Bukowina,
the Greek Catholics of the Oriental
8. Religious rite in Bukowina and Dalmatia, the
Distribution Armenian Catholics of the Orien-
and tal rite in Bukowina and Galicia,
Statistics, the Jews in Lower Austria, Galicia,
and Bukowina. The Evangelicals of the Augsburg Confession are far more evenly distributed than those of the Helvetic Confession, who are centered chiefly in Bohemia and Moravia Almost half of those professing no creed are in Lower Austria. The religious statistics of the empire on the basis of the census of Dec. 31, 1900, are summarized on page 381. Georg Loesche.
Bibliography : K. Kuzmany, Lehrbuch des allgemeinen und osterreichischen evangelisch-protestantischen Kirchenrechtes, Vienna, 1856; J. A. Ginzel, Handbuch des neuesten in Oesterreich geltenden Kirchen-Bechtes, 3 vols., Vienna, 1856-62; Sammlung der allgemeinen kirchlichen Verordnungen der kaiserlichcn kirchlichen evangelischen Oberkirchenrates (published continuously since 1873); Statistische Monatschrift (published at Vienna by the Central Commission for Statistics since 1875); M. Baumgarten, Die katholische Kirche unserer Zeit und ihre Ditner in Wort und Bild, 3 vols., Munich, 1897-1902; G. A. Skalsky, Zur Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenverfassung in Oesterreich, Vienna, 1898; G. Loesche, Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft fur die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Oesterreich (published since 1883 in Vienna); Oesterreichische Statistik (edited under the Central Commission for Statistics, in Vienna), especially vols, lxii-lxiii, 1902; the Quellen und Forschungen zur osterreichischen Kirchengeschichte has begun publication under the care of the Leo-Gesellschaft in Vienna, 1906.
AUTHORITY, ECCLESIASTICAL (Potestas ecclesiastica): The vested power of the Church over its members, by virtue of a divine commission (mandatum divinum) in the foundation of the Church. According to the pre-Reformation view and according to the same view as conserved by the Roman Catholic Church to-day, this authority is vested only in the pope and the bishops ; so that any others can exercise it merely Pre-Refor- in their name, as their commissioned mation and agents. Indeed, strictly regarded,
Roman according to the sense of the curia,
Catholic it devolves exclusively upon the pope, View. so that even the bishops possess none but a derivative power from him; and in so far as this conception of the matter is fundamental to the Vatican, it must accordingly be regarded as the sense which officially obtains in the Roman Catholic Church to-day.
Intrinsically, to be sure, the power of the Church is a salutary and spiritual power even according to the pre-Reformation doctrine. But the commission also carries with it everything which appears expedient in the sight of the commissioned themselves, with reference to the interests and cure of souls, toward the appertaining regulation of external conduct. Within limits affecting the cure of souls, then, the Church is also empowered with civil functions and prerogatives. In this
Authority Auxilius