„Der Staat ist nicht in der Kirche; sondern die Kirche in dem Staate“. Der griechisch-orientalische Religionsfonds der Bukowina – ein Instrument von Säkularisierung und staatlicher Neuordnung im 18. Jahrhundert?

As Bukovina was one of the Habsburg Monarchy’s new acquisitions at the end of the 18th century and the question of its future organization was at stake, it became somehow a field of experiment in South-Eastern Europe. While the pressure for reforms had already massively increased in Vienna with Maria Theresa, it turned into a veritable fervour during the reign of Joseph II. However, the modernizing state was confronted with a wide range of severe problems. Despite the urging pressure for reforms and the will to implement them consistently, there were still major obstacles to overcome. In the reorganization of Bukovina, Vienna could hardly use already existing and reasonably reliable regional structures, apart from the Greek-Oriental Church. Therefore, on the one hand, the organization structure of the church had to be adapted to the new spatial and idealistic concepts of reign, while on the other hand, the founding of the Greek-Oriental Religious Fund in 1783 was intended to reorganize the province’s monasteries, which were – from a Viennese perspective – considered to be highly inefficient in all aspects of their traditional self-government. Finally, this provided the basis necessary for a gradual state penetration of the Bucovina; which included both administrative practice and, on a socio-economic level, the financing of structural reorganization, despite chronically tight state coffers. Superficially, this was accompanied by a certain push towards secularization as far as the influence of the church and religion in everyday life was concerned. At the same time, the relationship in between (central) state and Greek-Oriental (regional) church remained a quite dynamic one, based on constant renegotiation. Finally – politically speaking – the orthodox church of Bucovina gained a stronger position than it had before. This article focuses on these reform processes within the context of the Habsburg Monarchy and frames them on a regional level using the example of Bukovina.