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Austria The Protestant Reformation in the Habsburg Lands
From the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in the
1520s, Protestant doctrines were welcomed by the people living in
the areas under Habsburg domination. By the middle of the
sixteenth century, most inhabitants were Protestant. Lutherans
predominated in German-speaking areas, except in Tirol, where the
Anabaptists were influential. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic
Church retained the support of the Habsburg Dynasty and was able
to maintain a strong presence throughout the area.
Religious violence and serious persecution were rare after
the 1520s, and an uneasy coexistence and external tolerance
prevailed for most of the sixteenth century. Ferdinand pressed
Rome for concessions that would bridge the positions of moderate
reformers and Catholics, but at the Council of Trent (1545-63),
the Catholic Church chose instead a vigorous restatement of
Catholic doctrine combined with internal reforms. The council
thus hardened lines of divisions between Catholicism and
Protestantism and laid the foundation for the
Counter-Reformation, which the Habsburgs would pursue
aggressively in the 1600s.
Data as of December 1993
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