An exhibition in cooperation with Bankhaus Spängler

500 years ago, Martin Luther proposed his 95 theses. This step had enormous consequences. Luther’s criticism of abuses in the Church rapidly spread; it led to the Reformation and the establishment of the Protestant denominations. The sovereign prince-archbishopric of Salzburg, too, saw a rapid propagation of Luther’s views.

It is remarkable that initially the archbishops of Salzburg did not fight Reformation as fiercely as other Catholic rulers. However, the expulsion of 22,000 Protestants by Archbishop Leopold Anton Freiherr von Firmian in 1731 and 1732 was particularly violent. It meant that Salzburg lost more than one sixth of its population. The nineteenth century brought some relief, and in the twentieth century, the Catholic Church and the newly arisen Protestant community were finally reconciled.