This section considers some of the most significant episodes illustrating Maria Theresa’s policies regarding religious tolerance and her son Joseph’s opposition to them. There was a delicate balance within the rule of the Habsburg
42 J.F. Retzer, Michael’s Denis literarisher Nachlass, II (Vienna, 1801), p. 138.
43 H. Kiesel, P. Münch, Gesellschaft und Literatur im 18 Jahrhundert (Munich, 1977), p. 114.
monarchy before the death of the empress Maria Theresa (1780). It may be more accurate to describe this as a “three-person rule” rather than a co-reign44. Maria Theresa and her son Joseph, who succeeded his father in 1765, were flanked by chancellor Kaunitz, who, from the start of his mandate (1753-92), never failed to exercise his rule and influence over the Habsburg rulers. It has been often noted that Maria Theresa’s point of view coincided with Catholicism’s Jansenist-inspired reformist intent, which also concorded with her son Joseph’s and Kaunitz’s desires45. There was however a point beyond which Maria Theresa resolutely refused to go; she would not tolerate the introduction of religious freedom in her empire. It should be noted that this freedom in fact already existed in much of the empire.46 Though Maria Theresa did not change the situation she inherited from her predecessors, she would not allow the religious unity of other Habsburg countries to be put into question. Her resoluteness here shows the deep level of support that the empress gave to Catholic reform47. Unlike her son and Kaunitz, she did not believe that social and religious reforms should be included in the Enlightenment thinking that had already permeated other European courts. Her action was driven solely by the desire to reinforce Catholicism and equip it to meet the challenge of the Protestant heresies within the monarchy. As a matter of fact, Maria Theresa continued her father’s policy of coercion in handling Protestants. In contrast to the mass expulsions effected by her father Charles VI, the empress deported about two hundred people from
44 “It must surely be agreed by everyone that the government had between 1765 and 1780 taken some of the important steps […] and that the policy owed much to each of Maria Theresa, Joseph and Kaunitz”. Beales, Enlightenment and Refom in Eighteenth Century Europe, p. 288.
45 Venturi, Settecento riformatore, IV. La caduta dell’Antico Regime (1776-1789). Il patriottismo repubblicano e gli imperi dell’Est, p. 624.
46 Two illustrative examples can be cited: the first concerns Hungary, where after reconquering it (1699), the Habsburgs, for political reasons, tolerated the country’s religious division; the second example is Transylvania where Catholicism remained a minority religion despite the establishment of the Uniate Church.
47 Dell’Orto, La nunziatura a Vienna di Giuseppe Garampi, p. 103-104.
Hungary and Transylvania according to statistics from 1773.48 In 1777, the religious question came back to the forefront with the discovery of a group of Protestants in northeast Moravia. This situation isolated Maria Theresa from her son and Kaunitz, who felt that the persecutions could cause migration that would be harmful for the economy and the empire image.49 The empress changed course. The measures took on a corrective rather than a punitive bent. Maria Theresa decided to found a new diocese in Brünn (Brno) and to have forty churches built there. On the 4 of July, Cardinal Albani presented Pope Pius VI with the plans for founding the new diocese and the empress’s letter. Although he asked for time to study the documents, the Pope, approved of the court’s proposals: “The Holy Father immediately expressed his satisfaction to me, who finds quite singular the keen interest that Your Majesty takes in the expansion of the Catholic Religion, and in the eradication of insidious heresies”.50 She hoped these measures would first cut off the “infected area” and then attempt to reabsorb the “illness”. However, there was still the matter of those who might
“persevere in their error”. For those, she saw no solution other than to deport them to Transylvania.
These episodes illustrate the distance between mother and son on the subject of religious reforms. Though both saw no justification for the wealth that the church owned in their territories and its interference in the social sphere, which they felt should be administered by the State, religious freedom was a point of dispute between the empress and the emperor. Joseph did not consider
48 Jean-Paul Bled, Marie-Thérese d’Autriche (Paris, 2001), p. 260.
49 Dell’Orto, La nunziatura a Vienna di Giuseppe Garampi, p. 106.
50 “Mi ha fatto subito conoscere il Santo Padre la soddisfazione, che prova ben singolare del vivo interesse, che l’apostolica Maestà Vostra prende per il dilatamento della Religione Cattolica, e per l’estirpazione delle serpeggianti eresie”. HHSTA, Roma 1777, July, 5: Albani to Maria Theresia. Original. Rom, Hofkorr. 26, fasc. 8 [year 1777] f. 44.
religious freedom an “illness”, as long as it did not degenerate into fanaticism or a spirit of separation. In Joseph’s opinion, the State exceeded its proper role when it tried to control consciences.51 Subjects should be expected to be obedient and observe the laws of nature and society. If they fulfilled these duties, they had the right to his protection, regardless of their religious beliefs. Maria Theresa’s response to his position was clear .In a letter addressed to her son on the 5 of July 1777, she emphasized that in Joseph’s relationship to religion, there was nothing moral left, if: “You insist on approving that universal tolerance which you tell me is a principle you will never abandon. I hope you will and I continue to pray to God to protect you from this Disgrace, which would be the greatest the monarchy has ever suffered”.52 In another letter, she adds that she is impelled by:
“No spirit of persecution, yet by no means indifference or tolerance, is what I desire as long as I am alive”.53