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 STYRIA

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STYRIA

Saint Alypius" after standing upright for fifty-three years found his feet no longer able to support him, but instead of descending from his pillar lay down on his side and spent the remaining fourteen years of his life in that position.

St. Luke the Younger, another famous pillar hermit , whose life has recently been printed for the first time in the "Analeota bollandiana" (1909, pp. 5-56), lived in the tenth century on Mount Olympus, but he also seems to have been of Asiatic parentage. There were many others besides these who were not so famous and even women Stylites were also known. One or two isolated attempts seem to have been made to in- troduce this form of asceticism into the West but it met with little favour. In the East cases were found down to the twelfth century; in the Orthodox Russian Church it lasted until 1461, and among the Ruthe- nians even later. There can be no doubt that for the majority of the pillar hermits the extreme austerity of which we read in the lives of the Simeons and of Aly- pius was somewhat mitigated. Upon the summit of some of the columns for example a tiny hut was erected as a shelter against sun and rain, and we hear of other hermits of the same class among the Mono- physites, who lived inside a hollow pillar rather than upon it; but the life in any case must have been one of extraordinary endmance and privation. Probably the best justification of these excesses of austerity is to be found in the fact that, like the great renunciation of St. Melania the Younger (see Cardinal Rampolla's "Sta Melania Giuniore"), they did, in an age of terrible corruption and social decadence, impress the need of penance more than anything else could have done upon the minds and imagination of Oriental Chris- tians.

Delehaye in Congres scientifique international des Catholiques, II (Brussels, 1895), 191-232; Aiialecla bollandiana (1909), 5-56; .\6ldeke, Sketches from Eastern History (tr. London, 1892), 210- 25: Ehrhard in Kirchenlexicon, s. v. Styliten.

Herbert Thurston.

Styria (Ger. Steiermark), a duchy and Austrian crownland, divided by the River Mur into Upper and Lower Styria. The province is rich in minerals, as iron ore, brown coal, etc. Its area is 8980 sq. miles, and in 1910 it had 1,441,604 inhabitants. Of the population 68 per cent are Germans, and 32 per cent Slovenes. The Slovenes, who are a branch of the Slavonic race, live chiefly in the southern and south- eastern portions of the province, in Lower Styria. Ninety-eight per cent of the population is Catholic; one per cent Protestant; the rest are Jews or belong to the Orthodox Greek Church. The capital of the province is Graz (l.')2,000 inhabitants); it is the resi- dence of the governor and the seat of the administra- tion of the province. In the Roman era Styria was a part of Noricum. During the great migrations vari- ous German tribes traversed the region, and about A. D. 600 the Slavs took possession of it. Styria came under the supremacy of Charlemagne as a part of Karantania (Carinthia). Large numbers of Ger- mans, especially Bavarians, came into the countrj', settled in colonies in it, and made it Christian. The work of conversion was carried on mainly from Salz- burg; Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (745-84), an Irish- man, was largely instrument ;d in converting the coun- try to Christianity, and gained for himself the name of "A])sllciif Karantania". The Patriarchs of A(|ui- leia also shared in the work. In Ml Charlemagne made the Drave Kiver thcbomidary of the Diocesesof Salzburg and .\(iuileia. In the lentli eenlury a pari of Styria was separated from Carinthia under the name of the Carinthian Mark; it was also named the \\'iudic March. The margaves ruling the mark took from the name of the fdilified caslle of Steier the title of Margraves of Sleierniark, and the country received in German llie name of Steiermark. During the reign of Margrave Ottokar 11 (1 104-92) Styria was raised to a

duchy by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1180. With the death of Ottokar the first line of rulers of Styria became extinct; the region fell to the Baben- berg family who then ruled in Austria. In a short time this family became extinct also, and Styria then passed under the control of Hungary (1254-60), and of King Ottokar of Bohemia; finally in 1276 it came into the possession of the Habsburgs, whose property it still remains. During the years 1379-1439 and 1564-1619 it was ruled by princes of its own from a branch of the Habsburgs. At the time of the Turkish invasions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the land suffered severely. The Turks made incur-

sions into Styria nearly twenty times; churches, mon- asteries, cities, and villages were destroyed and plun- dered, while the population was either killed or carried away into slavery.

The Reformation made its way into the country about 1530. During 1564-90 the country was ruled by Duke Karl, whose wife was the Duchess Maria of Bavaria, a courageous champion of Catholicism. He introduced the Counter-Reformation into the country on the basis of the Religious Peace of Augsburg of 1555. In 1573 he summoned the Jesuits and in 1586 he founded the University of Graz. In 1598 his son and successor, Ferdinand, suppressed all Protestant schools and expelled the foreign teachers and preach- ers. The common people again accepted with but slight opposition the Catholic faith. The Protestant doctrines were maintained only in a few isolated mountain valleys, as in the valley of the Inn and the valley of the Mur. The nobility were not forced to re- turn to the Church; each could have Protestant ser- vices in his own house. After Ferdinand had become Emperor of Germany (1619) and had defeated his Protestant opponents in the battle of the White Mountain near Prague (1620), he forbade in 1625 all Protestant church services. In 1628 he commanded the nobility also to return to the Catholic faith. A large number of noble families, consequently, emi- grated from the country; but most of them either re- turned, or their descemlants did so, becoming Catho- lics and recovering their ])sse.ssions. In the second half of the seventeenth century the Protestant spirit broke out again, es])eeially in the distant valleys in the mountains, owing to events in the Duchy of Salzburg. The agitators from the Protestant districts nf Ger- many were expelled, and the peasants who would not give up Protestantism were condemned to compulsory (•migration to Transylvania. It should be remem- bered that the harsh laws issued by the Catholic rulers of Styria and Austria were the application of the axiom then cm-rent in I'^uropean national law: cujus regio ejus relixjio, and that the Protestant princes sup- pressed and persecuted Catholicism and its adher- ents much more severely in their territories. The