J
JRRTFAN
Guest
I’m not sure this is the right board for this question but will procede anyway.
Last week I was in Salzburg, Austria treated to a walking tour by a local resident who is a friend of my daughter’s and an Evangelical missionary to the Afghan refugees in that city. He and his wife teach them Evangelical Christianity and the German language so they can get a job in Austria (which has enormous social srvices at even more enormous costs).
He didn’t know I am Catholic (everybody in my family has de=poped and I had a shirt on covering my special secret Catholic tattoo that we all get at Baptism.) So I just thought I’d keep my mouth shut and “let the dog hunt”, as it were, to get a real dose of Evangelical history.
After explaining “Mary worship” as evidenced by the paintings and statues in the various wonderful churches of Salzburg, we took a pause and he filled me in on the forced deportation of the Salzburg salt miners during the Reformation. It seems that the hapless salt miners began to see the light of Christianity as eveidenced in Lutheranism and sought to extinguish the ecclesiastical ties with the Archbishop who was a political as well as religious despot living off the huge income produced by the salt miner’s toil.
When they refused to recant, His Excellency forced them to emigrate to northern Germany, that land of religious enlightenment and hotbed of Lutheranism.
He only gave them 8 days to decide and they had to leave behind their property including many of their children who would be raised in Catholic orphanages. this event was only revealed several years ago, he said. “The people here had no idea!”
I announced, after the tour, my religious affiliations which caused an intake of breath that one had to observe to appreciate. I then corrected this dedicated young man on the errors of his Marian misunderstandings. I could not, however, offer any factual information vis the deportation. Upon returning to the U.S., I have found that the Archbishop imported Protestant miners from north Germany and tried to get them to live Catholic lives, and failing, sent them home.
I can find nothing detailed on the web about this scenario. I know the whole German Reformation thing was fairly violent on both sides and having toured a bit in the last 2 weeks personally feel the Reformation was a whole lot more about temporal power, land control and money than it was about religion (which was the spark that ignited it) not unlike Northern Ireland of the last 100 years.
Can anyone shed light on the poor miners real condition (with documentation) so I can send it to this gent so that his next tour is accurate?
I would love to correct any errors, the problem is it is tough to isolate this case as a unique activity in the overall trauma of the Reformation in that region.
Thoughts appreciated.
Last week I was in Salzburg, Austria treated to a walking tour by a local resident who is a friend of my daughter’s and an Evangelical missionary to the Afghan refugees in that city. He and his wife teach them Evangelical Christianity and the German language so they can get a job in Austria (which has enormous social srvices at even more enormous costs).
He didn’t know I am Catholic (everybody in my family has de=poped and I had a shirt on covering my special secret Catholic tattoo that we all get at Baptism.) So I just thought I’d keep my mouth shut and “let the dog hunt”, as it were, to get a real dose of Evangelical history.
After explaining “Mary worship” as evidenced by the paintings and statues in the various wonderful churches of Salzburg, we took a pause and he filled me in on the forced deportation of the Salzburg salt miners during the Reformation. It seems that the hapless salt miners began to see the light of Christianity as eveidenced in Lutheranism and sought to extinguish the ecclesiastical ties with the Archbishop who was a political as well as religious despot living off the huge income produced by the salt miner’s toil.
When they refused to recant, His Excellency forced them to emigrate to northern Germany, that land of religious enlightenment and hotbed of Lutheranism.
He only gave them 8 days to decide and they had to leave behind their property including many of their children who would be raised in Catholic orphanages. this event was only revealed several years ago, he said. “The people here had no idea!”
I announced, after the tour, my religious affiliations which caused an intake of breath that one had to observe to appreciate. I then corrected this dedicated young man on the errors of his Marian misunderstandings. I could not, however, offer any factual information vis the deportation. Upon returning to the U.S., I have found that the Archbishop imported Protestant miners from north Germany and tried to get them to live Catholic lives, and failing, sent them home.
I can find nothing detailed on the web about this scenario. I know the whole German Reformation thing was fairly violent on both sides and having toured a bit in the last 2 weeks personally feel the Reformation was a whole lot more about temporal power, land control and money than it was about religion (which was the spark that ignited it) not unlike Northern Ireland of the last 100 years.
Can anyone shed light on the poor miners real condition (with documentation) so I can send it to this gent so that his next tour is accurate?
I would love to correct any errors, the problem is it is tough to isolate this case as a unique activity in the overall trauma of the Reformation in that region.
Thoughts appreciated.