On August 25, 2026, the Roman Catholic Church in Styria, Austria’s second-largest state, published a protest on its official website titled “No Softening of Sunday Rest,” in which it emphatically opposed any relaxation of Sunday-closing laws. The Catholic Church declared that Sunday has served as a common day of rest for “thousands of years” and insisted that it should remain so, warning that any attempt to weaken or change this long-standing practice would threaten society.
The Catholic Church published the following statement:
• “In the course of the current debate about the Sunday opening for small local suppliers, the Catholic Church of Styria is against shopping on Sundays.” [1]
• “A softening of the legal Sunday regulations in this profit-oriented area contradicts the idea of the free Sunday as a common day off for recreation and is clearly to be rejected.” [1]
• “The free Sunday offers common time for family, friends as well as for rest and recreation. Where this is lacking, values that make up our society are threatened.” [1]
• “Sunday is a day that has set the pace for our society for thousands of years and creates space for breaks, for community and celebrations. The Catholic Workers’ Movement of Styria (KAB) is also clearly against further liberalization of shop opening hours.” [1]
Truth is not determined by time. Truth is determined by the Word of God. Sunday may possess centuries of ecclesiastical tradition behind it, but the seventh-day Sabbath possesses something infinitely greater: the direct command of the Creator.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy…. The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God.” Exodus 20:8, 10
The question we must ask should be: Will we follow what has been practiced for generations, or will we follow what God has actually said and what He has actually done?
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:1-3.
Genesis 2:1–3 is especially significant because the seventh-day Sabbath predates sin, sinners, Israel, Judaism, Catholicism, the Papacy, Protestantism, and even the tradition of Sunday rest. Before there was a Jew or Gentile, before there was a fallen human being, and before there was any religious controversy over days of worship, God Himself established the seventh day at Creation. Scripture says that after completing His work, “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested” (Genesis 2:3).
Those actions—God resting, blessing, and sanctifying—occurred in a perfect world. This completely destroys the argument that Sunday should be respected because society has observed it for “thousands of years.” The seventh-day Sabbath is older because it was blessed and sanctified by God at the very beginning of human history.
The Holy Scriptures do not record God removing that blessing from the seventh day and transferring it to the first day of the week. Human beings can establish customs and traditions, and governments can protect Sunday through legislation, but only God can make a day holy. Therefore, Sunday-rest tradition cannot claim authority simply because it is over 1,000 years old. Genesis 2:1–3 takes us beyond church history altogether—back before Constantine, before Rome, before Christianity, before Israel, before Abraham, and even before the entrance of sin. There, at the foundation of the world, we find not Sunday but the seventh day, Saturday, the true Sabbath, and its divine origin.
“The question is, ‘What is truth?’ It is not how many years have I believed that makes it the truth. You must bring your creed to the Bible and let the light of the Bible define your creed and show where it comes short and where the difficulty is. The Bible is to be your standard, the living oracles of Jehovah are to be your guide” (Faith and Works, p. 77).
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