Austria: Adventist Literature Evangelists Celebrate Centenary

Seventh-day Adventists publishers last week celebrated a century of literature evangelism, 100 years after Austria's first Adventist bookseller, South German native Ferdinand Prauhart, traveled to Austria in August 1907 to sell Bibles, Christian literatur

While publishers and literature evangelists in Europe face competition with new media and European secularization, Herbert Brugger, president of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Austria, says literature evangelism is still vital to the church’s growth.

Current and former literature evangelists gather to celebrate the centenary at Adventist-owned Bogenhofen Seminary in St. Peter am Hart, Austria.

Three generations of Austrian literature evangelists -- from left, Karl, Manfred and Samuel Hierzer -- joined other Austrian Adventist publishers and booksellers to celebrate 100 years of spreading the church's message through literature distribution. [photos: courtesy EUD]

Seventh-day Adventists publishers last week celebrated a century of literature evangelism, 100 years after Austria’s first Adventist bookseller, South German native Ferdinand Prauhart, traveled to Austria in August 1907 to sell Bibles, Christian literature and books about health.

About 350 Adventist booksellers and publishers commemorated the work of past literature evangelists in a ceremony at Adventist-owned Bogenhofen Seminary in St. Peter am Hart, Austria.

While the Adventist Church began in North America, Adventists in Europe were the first to develop a literature evangelism program, which they modeled after the region’s long history of Christian book distribution, beginning with Waldensian colporteurs during the 13th century.

The Adventist movement came to Austria in 1903 and, through Prauhart’s efforts, so did literature evangelism. In 1913, A. G. Daniells, then president of the world church, reported that Christian booksellers in the country were regularly persecuted and put in prison.

In 1921 Adventists opened a branch of Vienna’s Hamburg Publishing House, which helped legalize literature sales. The house closed during World War II, but reopened in 1948. Since then, church leaders say literature evangelists have sold some 1.5 million books in Austria.

“They have been faithful for 100 years and God has blessed them,” said Howard Faigao, director of the world church’s publishing department, speaking at the ceremony.

While Adventist literature evangelists no longer battle many of the challenges they once did, Franz Mössner, director of the Top Life Wegweiser Publishing House in Austria, said they still face competition with new media and European secularization.

“The work of the literature evangelists is still vital,” said Herbert Brugger, president of the Adventist Church in Austria.

The Adventist Church owns and operates 63 publishing houses around the world that print Christian literature in 261 languages. Adventist publishers say nearly 40,000 literature evangelists sold some 54 million books worldwide during the past five years.