The ecclesiastical legislation currently in force emanates from the various political systems operating in Austria since the beginning of the 19^th century and therefore they reflect the state of religious policies in their time. The 1867 Staatsgrundgesetz signalled a reduction of the denominational bias of the State and the introduction of a denominationally neutral system in ecclesiastical matters. It is still in force, but in practice, the State administration continued to favour the Church. The Staatsgrundgesetz was also retained in principle due in the Bundesverfassungsgesetz of 1920. The necessary revision of the law on religion initially affected only the Catholic Church. After lengthy negotiations a Concordat was concluded which came into force on 1 May 1934 together with a corporative-authoritarian. However, the “Anschluss” to Nazi Germany in 1938 brought an end to the denominational structure of Austria and the Concordat of 1934 was once again declared invalid. Because the Concordat of the German Reich was not extended, there was no concordat applicable to Austria. After the reconstitution of Austria in 1945 several laws relating to religion were transferred almost en bloc to the legal system of the Republic. The question whether the 1934 Concordat was valid in domestic and international law was unclear until the Federal Government expressly recognised the validity in 1957. A first period of legislation in the field of law on religion was initiated which brought about a renewal of the law for specific recognised churches and religious communities. In more recent years a further period of legislation on religion has been introduced, because the emergence of new religious movements involves the necessity to solve new increased problems.

II. Religious affiliation today

73.7 % of the Austrian population belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. Both the members of Protestant Church and the Islamists are about 4.5 % of the population . There are other religious groups which are much smaller: 2.2 % are Orthodox and 0.9 % are members of other religious groups (e.g. Jehovah`s Witnesses, Buddhists, Jews). But 12 % of the Austrian population have no confession.

III. Basic Categories of the System

The fundamental right to individual freedom of religious and philosophical beliefs and the guarantee through fundamental rights of the corporate activities of religious communities in public are the two main principles of the legal system that regulates the relations between State and Church in Austria. However, State and religious communities are separate at the institutional level. A legal framework should be provided for the incorporation of pluralistic religion into society in a context inwhich the State does not exercise its sovereignty.

IV. Cultural and social exercise of functions

Traditionally church institutions have played an important part in many areas of welfare tasks. In several cases, the State has taken this into consideration by expressly mentioning church institutions, for example in providing aid for asylum-seekers and in the field of development. But church institutions not only exercise welfare tasks, they are also important participants in that public dialogue by which citizens are motivated to act responsibly. This leads to the fact that the religious communities are not only integrated in the process of opinion-making concerning the formulation of State legislation which is relevant for them in a broad sense, but that they also are represented on many advisory  bodies and committees. Also in the field of education, mass media and pastoral care, the Church institutions are engaged. These institutions assume social responsibility in a variegated manner.

V.  Legal foundations

The Staatsgrundgesetz contains the most important constitutional provisions in Austrian law relating to religion. Article 14 contains the guarantees of individual religious rights and Article 15 contains the institutional guarantees. Also important are the legal provisions on religion in the Treaty of St. Germain and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The protection of religious freedom is also guaranteed by norms in constitutional and international law which includes general rules of non-discrimination, among other things, to differences in denomination. The constitutional norm of the European Convention on Human Rights overlays the older specific guarantees, called freedom of belief, freedom of conscience, freedom of cult, freedom of confession, and summarises them in one aggregated law on human rights in which the separate guarantees come together. This comprehensive idea of religious freedom shows that not only religious confession is protected by the constitutional order but a world view which is not religion-related is similarly protected. Furthermore, there are provisions of Ordinary law which deal with questions of the law on religion and relates to the legal status of specially recognised churches and religious communities (e.g. the Act on Confessional Communities or the Act on Interconfessional Relations).The special church-state law of the Catholic Church in Austria is traditionally made by treaties with the Holy See. With the many different shades of relationship between state and church, ecclesiastical law has over the course of time permeated the entire legal order; thus it cuts across all fields, defined only by relevance to religion.