Editing Maria Theresa (section)

==Religious views and policies==
[[File:Maria Theresa of Austria family.jpg|thumb|right|Maria Theresa and her family celebrating [[Saint Nicholas]], by [[Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen|Archduchess Maria Christina]], in 1762]]

Like all members of the [[House of Habsburg]], Maria Theresa was a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], and a devout one. She believed that religious unity was necessary for a peaceful public life and explicitly rejected the idea of [[religious toleration]]. She even advocated for a state church{{efn|In a letter to Joseph, she wrote: "What, without a dominant religion? Toleration, indifferentism, are exactly the right means to undermine everything... What other restraint exists? None. Neither the gallows nor the [[breaking wheel|wheel]]... I speak politically now, not as a Christian. Nothing is so necessary and beneficial as religion. Would you allow everyone to act according to his fantasy? If there were no fixed cult, no subjection to the Church, where should we be? The law of might would take command."{{harvnb|Crankshaw|1970|p=302}}}} and contemporary travelers criticized her regime as bigoted, intolerant and superstitious.{{sfn|Beales|2005|p=69}} However, she never allowed the church to interfere with what she considered to be prerogatives of a monarch and kept Rome at arm's length. She controlled the selection of archbishops, bishops and abbots.{{sfn|Mahan|1932|p=251}} Overall, the ecclesiastical policies of Maria Theresa were enacted to ensure the primacy of state control in church-state relations.{{sfn|Kann|1980|p=187}} She was also influenced by [[Jansenism|Jansenist]] ideas. One of the most important aspects of Jansenism was the advocacy of maximum freedom of national churches from Rome. Although Austria had always stressed the rights of the state in relation to the church, Jansenism provided new theoretical justification for this.{{sfn|Holborn|1982|p=223}}

Maria Theresa promoted the [[Greek Catholic Church|Greek Catholics]] and emphasized their equal status with [[Latin Church]] Catholics.{{sfn|Himka|1999|p=5}} Although Maria Theresa was a very pious person, she also enacted policies that suppressed exaggerated display of piety, such as the prohibition of public [[flagellantism]]. Furthermore, she significantly reduced the number of religious holidays and monastic orders.{{sfn|Holborn|1982|p=222}}

===Jesuits===
Her relationship with the [[Jesuits]] was complex. Members of this order educated her, served as her confessors, and supervised the religious education of her eldest son. The Jesuits were powerful and influential in the early years of Maria Theresa's reign. However, the Queen's ministers convinced her that the order posed a danger to her monarchical authority. Not without much hesitation and regret, she issued a decree that removed them from all the institutions of the monarchy, and carried it out thoroughly. She forbade the publication of [[Pope Clement XIII]]'s [[Apostolicum pascendi]] bull, which was in favour of the Jesuits, and promptly confiscated their property when [[Pope Clement XIV]] suppressed the order.{{sfn|Mahan|1932|p=253}}

===Jews===
[[File:Anton von Maron 006.png|thumb|right|[[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph]], Maria Theresa's eldest son and co-ruler, in 1775, by [[Anton von Maron]]]]

Maria Theresa regarded both the [[Jews]] and [[Protestantism|Protestants]] as dangerous to the state and actively tried to suppress them.{{sfn|Beales|2005|p=14}}{{sfn|Stollberg-Rilinger|2017|p=644}} She was probably the most anti-Jewish monarch of her time, having inherited the traditional prejudices of her ancestors and acquired new ones. This was a product of commonplace antisemitism and was not kept secret in her time. In 1777, she wrote of the Jews: "I know of no greater plague than this race, which on account of its deceit, usury and avarice is driving my subjects into beggary. Therefore as far as possible, the Jews are to be kept away and avoided."{{sfn|Crankshaw|1970|p=313}} Her animosity was such that she was willing to tolerate Protestant businessmen and financiers in Vienna, such as the Swiss-born [[Johann von Fries]], since she wanted to break free from the Jewish financiers.{{sfn|Beller|2006|p=87}}

In December 1744, she proposed to her ministers the expulsion of around 10,000 Jews from Prague amid accusations that they were disloyal at the time of the Bavarian-French occupation during the War of the Austrian Succession. The order was then expanded to all Jews of Bohemia and major cities of Moravia. Her first intention was to deport all Jews by 1 January, but having accepted the advice of her ministers, had the deadline postponed.{{sfn|Mahan|1932|p=254}} The expulsion was executed only for Prague and only retracted in 1748 due to economic considerations and pressures from other countries, including Great Britain.{{sfn|Beller|2006|p=87}}{{sfn|Kann|1980|pp=189–190}}

In the third decade of her reign, Maria Theresa issued edicts that offered some state protection to her Jewish subjects. She forbade the forcible conversion of Jewish children to Christianity in 1762, and in 1763 she forbade Catholic clergy from extracting [[surplice fees]] from her Jewish subjects. In 1764, she ordered the release of those Jews who had been jailed for a [[blood libel]] in the village of Orkuta.{{sfn|Patai|1996|p=203}} Notwithstanding her continuing strong dislike of Jews, Maria Theresa supported Jewish commercial and industrial activity in Austria.{{sfn|Penslar|2001|pp=32–33}} There were also parts of the realm where the Jews were treated better, such as [[Imperial Free City of Trieste|Trieste]], [[Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca|Gorizia]] and [[Vorarlberg]].{{sfn|Vocelka|2000|p=201}}

===Protestants===
In contrast to Maria Theresa's efforts to expel the Jews, she aimed to convert the Protestants (whom she regarded as heretics) to Catholicism.{{sfn|Stollberg-Rilinger|2017|pp=644–647}} Commissions were formed to seek out secret Protestants and intern them in workhouses, where they would be given the chance to subscribe to approved statements of Catholic faith. If they accepted, they were to be allowed to return to their homes. However, any sign of a return to Protestant practice was treated harshly, often by exile.{{sfn|Stollberg-Rilinger|2017|pp=647–666}} Maria Theresa exiled Protestants from Austria to [[Transylvania]], including 2,600 from [[Upper Austria]] in the 1750s.{{sfn|Beller|2006|p=87}} Her son and co-ruler Joseph regarded his mother's religious policies as "unjust, impious, impossible, harmful and ridiculous".{{sfn|Beales|2005|p=14}} Despite her policies, practical, demographic and economic considerations prevented her from expelling the Protestants ''en masse''. In 1777, she abandoned the idea of expelling [[Moravian Church|Moravian Protestants]] after Joseph, who was opposed to her intentions, threatened to abdicate as emperor and co-ruler.{{sfn|Vocelka|2000|p=201}} In February 1780, after a number of Moravians publicly declared their faith, Joseph demanded a general freedom to worship. However, Maria Theresa refused to grant this for as long as she lived. In May 1780, a group of Moravians who had assembled for a worship service on the occasion of her birthday were arrested and deported to Hungary.{{sfn|Stollberg-Rilinger|2017|p=665}} Freedom of religion was granted only in the [[Patent of Toleration]] issued by Joseph immediately after Maria Theresa's death.{{sfn|Stollberg-Rilinger|2017|p=666}}

===Eastern Orthodox Christians===
{{Further|Metropolitanate of Karlovci|Declaratory Rescript of the Illyrian Nation}}
[[File:Carske privilegije.jpg|thumb|upright|Confirmation of Serbian privileges, issued by Maria Theresa in 1743]]

The policies of Maria Theresa's government toward their [[Eastern Orthodox]] subjects were marked by special interests, relating not only to complex religious situations in various southern and eastern regions of the [[Habsburg monarchy]], inhabited by [[Eastern Orthodox Christians]], mainly [[Serbs]] and [[Romanians]], but also regarding the political aspirations of the Habsburg court toward several neighbouring lands and regions in Southeastern Europe still held by the declining [[Ottoman Empire]] and inhabited by an Eastern Orthodox population.{{sfn|Bronza|2010|pp=51–62}}

Maria Theresa's government confirmed (1743) and continued to uphold old privileges granted to their Eastern Orthodox subjects by previous Habsburg monarchs (emperors Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI), but at the same time, new reforms were enforced, establishing much firmer state control over the Serbian Orthodox [[Metropolitanate of Karlovci]]. Those reforms were initiated by royal patents, known as ''Regulamentum privilegiorum'' (1770) and ''Regulamentum Illyricae Nationis'' (1777), and finalized in 1779 by the [[Declaratory Rescript of the Illyrian Nation]], a comprehensive document that regulated all major issues relating to the religious life of their Eastern Orthodox subjects and the administration of the Serbian Metropolitanate of Karlovci. Maria Theresa's rescript of 1779 was kept in force until 1868.{{sfn|Ćirković|2004|pp=166–167, 196–197}}{{sfn|Bocşan|2015|pp=243–258}}