The Dalmatian Episcopate and World War I

Abstract

This work first presents and analyses the ecclesiastical situation on the eve of World War I in the Austrian province of Dalmatia, where the Catholic Church was organised within the frame of the Zadar ecclesiastical province, which encompassed the Archdiocese of Zadar as well as the Dioceses of Šibenik, Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik, and Kotor. The relationship between Church and State based on the tenets of enlightened absolutism allowed the Church unrestricted activity, while the State in turn enjoyed the support of the Church. The Habsburg Monarchy, the largest Catholic state in Europe and embodied in the person of the emperor, was the strongest supporter and protector of Catholicism in Europe.

Based on archival sources and the contemporaneous press, this paper presents the activities of Dalmatian bishops during World War I in view of their stance towards the Habsburg Monarchy and its war effort. The humanitarian and charity contribution of the Church in Dalmatia to a society afflicted by wartime adversities is also shown, as is its role in supporting the Monarchy and the emperor, expressed through various religious rites whose goal – apart from religious intentions – was to raise wartime morale and show uncompromising loyalty to the authorities.

In the context of the political events of the last two years of the war (from the May Declaration of 1917 to the end of the war), the stances of priests and bishops towards political issues are analysed; significant differences in views have been detected. While the clergy expressed its clear support to the Croatian national political programme as set down in the May Declaration already in 1917, Dalmatian bishops did not make any public statements regarding this issue until the end of the war. Dalmatian metropolitan and Zadar archbishop Vinko Pulišić condemned the politics of national emancipation and was convinced that the political framework of Austria-Hungary offered the only guarantee of stability and prosperity. In contrast, the remaining Dalmatian bishops accepted the idea of national self-determination on the eve of the Monarchy’s collapse, and embraced the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and later the unification with the Kingdom of Serbia.