1782 Edict of Tolerance

The 1782 Edict of Tolerance (Toleranzedikt vom 1782) was a religious reform of Emperor Joseph II during the time he was emperor of the Habsburg Monarchy as part of his policy of Josephinism, a series of drastic reforms to remodel Austria in the form of the ideal Enlightened state. Joseph II's enlightened despotism included the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782. The Patent of Toleration granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox, but it wasn't until the 1782 Edict of Tolerance that Joseph II extended religious freedom to the Jewish population.

The 1781 Patent of Toleration allowed certain rights and recognized the existence of non-Catholic religions in the Habsburg Empire. The Edict of Toleration allowed Protestants from other countries where religious tolerance was not enforced to immigrate to Austria and hold jobs such as pharmacists, carpenters and blacksmiths. The tolerated religions, however, were allowed to have congregations no larger than 100 people in a private home. If a certain sect had more than 100 families living in an area, they were allowed to build a church only if the church did not have a direct entrance from the street and had no visible appearance of being a church. When it came to the case of mixed marriages, there were also laws that had to be followed: if a Catholic man had children with a non-Catholic woman, all the children would be raised Catholic. In the case of a Catholic woman with a non-Catholic man, the girls would be raised Catholic while the boys would be raised non-Catholic.

Scrutiny from Catholic officials occurred in places, like Bohemia, where the officials attempted to preserve religious unity. In order to do this they had printed out all the pamphlets that described this edict in German. The population whom this would affect, however, generally could not speak or read German.

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