Religion: Austria

78% of the Austrian population are Roman Catholics, while a further 5% are Protestants, most of them belonging to the Augsburg confession. About 4.5% belong to other groups while the remaining 9% are non-denominational and 3.5% provided no information (figures according to the 1991 national census).

The following rights are guaranteed by the State to the legally recognized churches and religious communities:

Public worship
- Right (legal protection of “designations,” entitlement to exclusive pastoral responsibility for their members)
- Status as public law corporations
- Autonomous organization and administration of their “internal” affairs
- Protection of their institutions, foundations and funds against secularization
- The right to found confessional private schools
- Entitlement to religious instructions in public schools

The freedom of the legally recognized churches and religious communities are guaranteed in Article 15 of the Federal Constitution, with the explicit reservation that they are subject to general legislation. Relations between state and church were regulated for the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1933/34, for the Protestant Church in the Protestantengesetz of 1961, for the Jewish Community in the Israelitengesetz of 1890, for the Orthodox Church in the Orthodoxengesetz of 1967 and for Moslems in the Islamgesetz of 1912. Relations with the other legally recognized churches and religious communities were regulated in the Recognition Law of 1874.

According to Austrian law (”law on the religious education of children”), every young person over the age of fourteen can freely choose his or her religion.

Religious education in Austrian schools is not restricted to the Roman Catholic confession: children belonging to smaller churches and religious communities receive religions education in their own confession. Their teachers are paid by the State.