!!!Diözese

Diocese, ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. 
Since 1999, Austria has 9 dioceses (2 arch dioceses), subdivided into 
230  Deaneries. The ecclesiastical province of Vienna is constituted 
by the archdiocese of Vienna (the city of Vienna, the eastern parts of 
the province of Lower Austria, the regions east of the Manhartsberg 
hill and the Vienna Woods) and the dioceses of Linz (Upper Austria), 
St. Poelten (the regions west of the Manhartsberg hill and the 
Vienna Woods) and Eisenstadt (Burgenland.). The ecclesiastical 
province of Salzburg is made up of the archdiocese of Salzburg (the 
province of Salzburg, and Tirol east of the River Ziller) and the 
dioceses of Gurk (Carinthia), Graz-Seckau (Styria) Innsbruck (Tirol 
west of the River Ziller and East Tirol) and Feldkirch (Vorarlberg). 
The organisation of the church established during Roman times ( 
Christianity, Early) was destroyed in the 6%%sup th/%  century by the 
Great Migration of the Germanic tribes and Slav invasion. In the 
following centuries ( Christianisation), Salzburg (diocese in the 
7%%sup th/%  century, archdiocese from 798) and the suffragan diocese 
of Passau (now Germany) took over the ecclesiastical administration of 
the Austrian territory, which up to the mid-15%%sup th/%  century did 
not have its own diocese (with the exception of Tirol). The first 
independent Austrian dioceses were established at Wiener Neustadt and 
Vienna; the latter was made an archdiocese in 1722.

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The reform instituted by  Joseph II and drawn up by the bishop of 
Laibach (Ljubliana/Slovenia), Count J. K.  Herberstein, 
re-organised the ecclesiastical structure in Austria and brought it in 
line with the structure of the state. In 1784, Upper and Lower Austria 
were detached from the diocese of Passau, in 1785 the dioceses of Linz 
and St. Poelten were established and subordinated to Vienna as 
suffragan dioceses. Vienna was given jurisdiction over the eastern 
parts of Lower Austria and the Pitten area, which had been transferred 
from Salzburg to the diocese of Wiener Neustadt in 1782 (abolished in 
1785). In 1786 SaIzburg gave up its diocesan rights in Styria and 
Carinthia, where the archbishops of Salzburg had set up their 
suffragan dioceses of Gurk (1072, but given a territory of its own in 
1131), Seckau (1218) and Lavant (1228, seat in St. Andrae). 
Styria was divided into the dioceses of Seckau-Graz (for central and 
lower Styria) and Leoben (for upper Styria, unified with Seckau in 
1859), Carinthia in the dioceses of Lavant (for the districts of 
Voelkermarkt and Cilli (now Slovenia) - in 1859 the Carinthian part 
was turned over to the diocese of Gurk, the Slovenian part to Marburg 
(Maribor) and Gurk-Klagenfurt (for the rest of Carinthia). In the 
course of this reorganisation, the part of Carinthia situated south of 
the River Drau/Drava, up to then under the jurisdiction of the 
patriarch of Aquileia, was incorporated into the Carinthian diocese. 
The ecclesiastical order in western Austria was untouched by 
Joseph II's reform. Tirol had always been part of the diocese of 
Brixen (Bressanone, South Tirol), only the smaller section east of the 
River Ziller was under the jurisdiction of Salzburg; Vorarlberg was 
divided among the dioceses of Chur (Switzerland), Constance and 
Augsburg (both Germany). After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire in 1918 and the cession of South Tirol to Italy, the diocese of 
Brixen/Bressanone was detached from the metropolitanate of Salzburg in 
April 1921; this completed the division of North and South Tirol in 
church matters as well. North Tirol (west of the River Ziller) and 
East Tirol were unified with Vorarlberg to form the Apostolic 
Administration of Innsbruck-Feldkirch (from 1925 it had all the rights 
of a residential diocese) and directly subordinated to the Holy See. 
However, they remained in many ways under the jurisdiction of the 
archdiocese of Salzburg. In 1964 it was made into the diocese of 
Innsbruck with the "vicariate general for Vorarlberg at Feldkirch". In 
1968 the Vorarlberg part was disconnected from the diocese of 
Innsbruck-Feldkirch and a separate diocese for the province of 
Vorarlberg was set up at Feldkirch. Burgenland, a new province after 
the war, was made an Apostolic Administration in 1922 and diocese (of 
Eisenstadt) in 1960. Alongside the dioceses there is also the "abbey 
nullius" of Mehrerau (in Vorarlberg), directly responsible to Rome.

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The military vicariate at Wiener Neustadt was re-named "military 
ordinariate" in 1987.

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The  Protestant Church, Augsburg Confession has 7 superintendencies 
(dioceses) in Austria: Burgenland, Carinthia and East Tirol, Lower 
Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg and Tirol, Styria, Vienna. The seat 
is the respective provincial capital, with the exception of Carinthia 
(Villach).


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