www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Blessed Karl of Austria

The sixteenth century began a period of transformation in the socioeconomic and religious life of Carpatho-Rusyns. North of the mountains, Polish landlords expanded their estates into the Lemko Region where the local Rusyn peasant population became enserfed. This meant that landlords steadily acquired control over all aspects of a peasant's life, including the amount of work a peasant family had to perform on the landlord's estate, the amount of taxes a peasant household had to pay, even when and to whom peasants could marry. In order to ensure that these duties were fulfilled, Rusyn peasants were forbidden to leave their property, even temporarily, without the permission of the landlord. In effect, the serf became legally tied to the land.

South of the mountains the Hungarian government also passed laws (1514) that established serfdom in the countryside. Those laws were for some tirne not enforceable, however. This is because Hungary was invaded by the Ottoman Turks, who annihilated the Hungarian army in 1526, and who within a few decades came to control nearly three-quarters of the country. For nearly the next two centuries all that remained of Hungary was a small strip of territory under Habsburg Austria (primarily what is today Slovakia and part of Croatia) and the semi-independent principality of Transylvania (present-day central Romania) in the east. The Catholic Habsburgs spent as much time fighting their rivals for control of Hungary -the Protestant princes of Transylvania- as they did the Ottoman Turks.

Tucked in between Transylvania and Habsburg-controlled Hungary was Carpathian Rus', which for most of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was ravaged by the contlicts between the military forces of Catholic Austria and Protestant Transylvania. Villages were frequently destroyed by marauding troops and the size of the Rusyn population declined because of flight or death by disease brought in the wake of foreign soldiers. Frustrated with their fate, many Rusyns joined Hungary's independent Transylvanian princes in their struggle against the Habsburgs. For instance, during the last great anti-Habsburg rebellion, the armies of the Transylavanian Hungarian Prince Ferenc II Rakoczi (who was raised in the farnily castle of Mukacevo) was made up largely of Rusyn peasants. Even though Rakoczi was finally defeated in 1711, a Hungarian legend arose about Rusyns and how they proved to be a people most faithful (gens fidelissima) to "their" prince and country. Another result of the defeat of Rakoczi was the full implementation of Austrian Habsburg rule throughout all of Hungary.

For Carpathian Rus' this meant the influx of new Austro-Ger manic landlords, like the Schonborn family, which during the eighteenth century came to control large tracts of land and numerous Rusyn villages. The Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox church in Hungary was also caught up in the political rivalry between Catholic Austria and Protestant Transylvania. At the same time, Poland's Catholic rulers were becoming increasingly alarmed at the rapid spread of Protestantism within their realm. Faced with such political and religious rivalries, several Orthodox priests and a few bishops, first in Poland and then in Hungary, decided to join the Catholic church and to recognize the authority of the Pope. This was confirmed by agreements reached at the Union of Brest (1595) and the Union of Uzhorod (1646), after which the Uniate church came into being. In the course of the next century, the Orthodox church was banned and all Carpatho-Rusyns became officially Uniate or, as they came to be known after the 1770s, Greek Catholic.

Unlike the Orthodox, the Uniate/Greek Catholics were recognized as a Habsburg state church, and in 1771 received their own independent Greek Catholic eparchy (diocese) of Mukacevo. Financially supported by the Austrian Habsburg authorities, the Greek Catholic church by the late eighteenth century operated elementary schools and academies for seminarians in which the Rusyn and Church Slavonic languages were taught. From these institutions came Greek Catholic clerics (Ioanniky Bazylovyc, Mychal Luckaj), who during the second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries wrote the first histories of the Carpatho-Rusyns.

Habsburg history goes back much longer than the dual monarchy (would you have wanted to be a Czech Protestant in the 17th century for instance?).

His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, Charles the First, by the Grace of God, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, of this name the Fourth, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria...

Dear John the Pilgrim,

Thanks very much for posting the information on the miracle attributed to Blessed Charles of Austria - that is most welcome news!

I would not wish to be a Czech Protestant at any time in history, or at present, nor at any future time I can imagine! The risk of defenestration is ever-present.

Emperor Charles did not fall, he was pushed off his thrones by Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson. Now guess which social and benevolent organization all three of them belonged to? Hint: so did Masaryk! Austria was ready to fight to retain the Emperor, but Charles refused to allow it - his people had suffered more than enough. Hungary nominally did keep the Apostolic King (the same person as the Emperor), even though the Big Three would not allow him in Hungary: Horthy functioned as Regent, first for Charles, then for Otto.

The Empress and Apostolic Queen Zita, God rest her, was indeed a woman who led an outstanding Christian life; the cause for her beatification has already been opened. She spent the last 20 years of her life in a women's monastery in Switzerland, taking it in turns every day to pray for a different country of her crowns - she said that was the one Imperial and Royal duty that no one could deprive her of; no matter what, she could pray. Her funeral in Vienna and Budapest in 1988 was amazing.

The icon of the Righteous Emperor Charles which Bishop Hlib consecrated here on Theophany is now blessing my humble abode, enthroned on the living room wall (we shall be bringing it to church for the major feasts and of course for Pascha). I shall have holy cards printed from it as soon as possible.

It is true that things were much better for both the Orthodox and the Greek-Catholics in Austria than they were in Hungary. St. Maxim Sandovich was killed for political reasons, not religious reasons (anybody who wanted to become Orthodox in Austria could do so - but this meant joining either the Old-Ritualists, or the Autocephalous Church in Bukovina, not the Russian State Church).

Talerhof was horrible - and the Poles bear a significant share of the blame. Nevertheless, Father Titus Myshkovsky, a well-known Galician Russophile in non-political terms, was treated with kid gloves and held in Cisleithania under very light house arrest, and had the good grace to die of natural causes just before World War II.

Anyone who wants a thorough lesson for what happens to those who guess wrong should note how the Soviets treated the Galician Russophiles.

And anyone who thinks that Charles was a baddie should tell me just whom he prefers: Hitler or Stalin?

Even Franz Joseph - he was no Saint, but he was not anxious to repress people or precipitate a blood bath either. What was he supposed to do when his Heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, pat the Serbian Ambassador on the head and say "don't mention it!"? We know now that the assassination really was bought and paid for in Serbia.

Beloved and Righteous Emperor Charles, intercede for us!

Fr. Serge

Hungary nominally did keep the Apostolic King (the same person as the Emperor), even though the Big Three would not allow him in Hungary: Horthy functioned as Regent, first for Charles, then for Otto.
Fr. Serge

Given a choice of chancellor, first citizen, tsar or emperor I would take none of the above. Rule by force is as illegitimate as rule by chance of genetic inheritance.

The Habsburgs may have indeed have run a "kinder, gentler" empire in Eastern Europe than say those of France or Britain with their overseas possessions. Ultimately however it was built on the same principles though - superiority of a type of culture (Germanic) and mission to "civilize" others. These ideas were used as justification for maintaining rule over subject peoples and engaging in their economic exploitation. Empires exist as kleptocracies, and the empire of the Habsburgs was no different.

None of this impugns the personal sanctity or character of Karl I, but it remains a fact he sat as the head of a system that shouldn't have existed, and that it is good that this system is gone and will never return.

No offense, I find your logic flawed. It was the United States of America that commited genocide against the natives of North America, and it was the USA and her Anglo-Saxon defacto noility that ruled her during the late 19th century and created an empire (Spanish-American War, Indian Wars, annexation of Hawaii etc). Dose that make the current United States evil and unfit for existence?

I suggest you read Mien Kampf, Adolf Hitler makes it pretty clear that the Austrian-Hungarain Empire was hardly Germanic in any sence and far too tolerating of those "Slavs", he actually called it in several parts the "Slavic Empire".

Here's a question I have: was the Emperor of Austria ever commemorated in the Divine Liturgy like the Czar was in the Russian Orthodox Church?

I would not wish to be a Czech Protestant at any time in history, or at present, nor at any future time I can imagine! The risk of defenestration is ever-present.