Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 25, 1914

A Unique Case

A PECULIAR case of religious antipathy between Catholics and Protestants, coupled with superstitious regard for so-called "holy ground," has recently come from one of the courts in Austria. The Northwestern Christian Advocate of May 27, 1914, gives the incident as follows:—

Some time ago there died in St. Johann, in der Haide, Lower Austria, a miller. He was a Protestant, consequently a heretic. So the priest of the village where this plain miller had lived and died in that particular Catholic community, ordered that his grave should be dug in a certain designated corner of the community cemetery. So the remains of that miller were buried in a grave apart from all other graves. And finally, in order to make this ostracism more pronounced, the priest had a most secure barbed wire fence erected around the grave. The nearest evangelical congregation objected to this treatment of its adherents, and went to court with its case, requesting that the abominable barbed wire fence should be speedily removed from the grave of the miller. This happened three years ago. Now the two lower courts at Hartberg and at Gratz sustained this objection. Just recently, however, the higher court held that it saw no reason why the action of the priest and his congregation should not be sustained. Evangelicals in Austria are now determined to find out how far Roman Catholics can go in Austria in the twentieth century in their persecutions of Protestants.