Freie Kirche im freien Staat. Die Entstehung des österreichischen Protestantengesetzes (1961) zu seinem 60-Jahr-Jubiläum1)

Abstract “The free church in the free state” is a quotation from the Italian politician Cavour that the Austrian Minister of Culture Drimmel took up when he ushered in a new era of Austrian religious policy in 1954. The situation was complicated because the validity of the Concordat with Rome of 1934 was disputed. It was not until the State Treaty of 1955 that its continued validity under international law was confirmed; its domestic enactment by a rump parliament in 1935 (without Social Democratic deputies) was challenged by the Socialist coalition partner. It was not until 1957 that a solution to the concordat issue could be tackled. This was done by renegotiating partial concordats. At the same time, the Protestant Law was drafted, of which the aforementioned minister could say that it realized best his ideas on religious law. He regretted that it could not be implemented in the form of a church treaty. Constitutional concerns stood in the way because the Protestant Church does not have subjectivity under international law. The article discusses the prehistory of the Protestant Law and analyzes individual provisions of it.