ABSTRACT
The new spirit was the more irksome to the Roman Church, since it had come to regard State control as a fiction. When the relationships of State and Church first became strained, however, the immediate causes came from outside. Prussia was the principal scene of the struggle, though the issues which it raised affected all Germany, and few of the other States were able to maintain an altogether neutral position. Embittered by the repressive laws which were being enforced in Germany against their Church and co-religionists, the Ultramontanes in particular embraced with vehemence the spirit of revenge. A law followed repealing the articles of the Prussian constitution which guaranteed independent government to the Protestant and Catholic churches and their substitution by the provision that these churches and all others should henceforth be regulated by the laws of the State. The result of the congress was a decision to constitute a separate church.
