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· Otto von Habsburg: The grand old order knocks on heaven’s door.

By DEREK SCALLY [Irish Times] – In the cool, dry air of a Vienna crypt, Austria will today agree an uneasy truce with the late Otto von Habsburg, the man who would be kaiser.

After nearly a century connecting the old European order with the new, Dr von Habsburg, who died last week aged 98, will be laid to rest beside his illustrious forebears as Austria debates once more the unfinished business of their vanished empire.

Today’s funeral lowers the final curtain on the Habsburg dynasty, that using a strategic mix of wars and weddings held together a cosmopolitan mosaic of central European peoples for over six centuries…

AFTER A requiem at Vienna’s St Stephen’s Cathedral, the funeral party will enter Vienna’s Capuchin Friary (Kapuzinerkirche) after the following “knocking” ceremony.

FIRST KNOCK

Capuchin Friar : “Who desires admission?”

Leader of funeral party:  “Otto of Austria, former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bukowina; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Osweicim and Zator, of Teschen, Friaul, Dubrovnik and Zadar; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Istria: Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenburg; Lord of Trieste, Kotor and Windic March; Grand Voivod of the Voivodship of Serbia”

Friar : “We do not know him!”

SECOND KNOCK

Friar : “Who desires admission?”

Leader  : “Dr Otto von Habsburg; President and Honorary President of the Pan-European Union; Member and Father of the House of the European Parliament; Holder of honorary doctorates from countless universities and freeman of many communities in Central Europe; Member of numerous noble academies and institutes; Bearer of high and highest awards, decorations and honours of church and state made to him in recognition of his decade-long struggle for the freedom of peoples, for right and justice.”

Friar: “We do not know him!”

THIRD KNOCK

Friar : “Who desires admission?”

Leader  : “Otto — a mortal, sinful man!”

Friar: “Let him be admitted.”

Continued at The Irish Times | Hat-tip: McDermott’s Miscellany | More Chronicle & Notices.

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