Czechoslovak Hussite Church

Church in Olomouc-Černovír (Czech Republic).

The Czechoslovak Hussite Church (Czech: Církev československá husitská, CČSH or CČH) is a Christian Church which separated from the Roman Catholic Church after World War I in former Czechoslovakia. It traces its tradition back to the Hussite reformers and acknowledges Jan Hus (John Huss) as its predecessor. It was well-supported by Czechoslovakia's first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.

History

The forerunner of the CČSH was the Jednota (Union of the Catholic Czechoslovak Clergy), which was founded in 1890 to promote modernist reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, such as use of the vernacular in the liturgy and the adoption of voluntary rather than compulsory clerical celibacy. The radical movement that resulted in the foundation of a new Church began in the Christmas season of 1919, when Christmas masses were celebrated in the Czech language in many Czechoslovak churches. The CCH was officially established on January 8, 1920 by Dr. Karel Farský, who became its first Patriarch and author of its liturgy. It was known until 1971 as the Czechoslovak Church. The head of the Church continues to bear the title of Patriarch.

Membership is estimated at between 100,000 and 180,000 adherents, mostly in the Czech Republic and some in Slovakia. There are 304 congregations divided into five dioceses situated in Prague, Pilsen, Hradec Králové, Brno, and Olomouc in the Czech Republic and 3 congregations in the only one Bratislava Diocese in Slovakia. There are approximately 266 priests in active ministry, of whom 130 are women. Candidates of ministry are prepared at the Hussite Faculty of Theology at Charles University in Prague.

Doctrine and liturgy

The Hussite Church is unique in not being Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant. It instead drawing its teachings from the traditional Christianity presented by the Church Fathers (Patristics), with the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and the Reformation tradition, especially Utraquist and Hussite thought.

Like Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Anglo-Catholics, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church recognizes seven sacraments. Like the Lutherans and the Reformed churches, it emphasizes the freedom of conscience of individual believers, they practiced the ordination of women and emphasizes the equal participation of the laity in church leadership.

The celebration of the liturgy is the center of worship practice. It used to be two forms, which have much in common with the texts of the Catholic Mass, but there are also elements of Luther's German Mass and the tradition of the Utraquist mass.

There is no veneration of saints, but images of saints are employed in the church decoration. In the post-1920 period new churches were built, but only a few portraits appropriate, particularly representations of Christ, and occasionally pictures of Jan Hus.

In the iconography of the Church the chalice plays a major role, usually depicted in red, as in the 15th Century as a battle standard on the flags of the Hussites was used. It is found in the church, to the sacerdotal, the bindings of liturgical books, church steeples and church banners.

Demography of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church

After an initial split from the Catholic Church, amidst the post-war atmosphere of anti-Catholic agitation and euphoria about the Czech independence, the Czechoslovak Church saw rapid increase of its membership. In the first Czechoslovak post-war census of 1921 523,232 people claimed to be adherents of this church in what is today the Czech Republic. In 1930 the membership further grew to 779,672.[1] With 7.3 pct. of total population it became the prevailing religion in several regions of Bohemia and to a lesser degree in Moravia. At the beginning of the Communist rule the 1950 census recorded 946,497 adherents of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. In the following decades there was no official census of religious affiliation in what is today the Czech Republic. In the 1991 census there were 178,036 members of this church in the Czech republic. The 2001 census recorded 99,103 members.[2]

Relations with other churches

At beginning the Hussite Church sought relations with the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Old Catholic Church, and also spoused tendency to a rationalist and Unitarian Christian theology, but when adopted its creed in 1958 it was founded on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

The Church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic, the Conference of European Churches, and the Leuenberg Community of Churches

Relations between the Church and its fellow members of the ecumenical movement are cordial, but remained strained with the country's Roman Catholic leadership. The first female bishop of the Czechoslovak-Hussite church was elected to a 7-year term of office in April 1999. In January 1999, Catholic Archbishop Miloslav Vlk initially made a public statement of disapproval, warning against election of a woman to this position and saying that it would cause deterioration of ecumenical relations.^[1] Following criticism by the Czech-Hussite Church for interfering in their affairs, the Roman Catholic Church distanced themselves from his remarks and stated that they would exert no pressure against her election.^[2] In 2000, Catholic representatives attended the consecration of Jana Šilerová as the Hussite Church’s first woman bishop.^[3]

Patriarchs

• Karel Farský (1924 - 1927)
• Gustav Adolf Procházka (1927 - 1942)
• František Kovář (1946 - 1961)
• Miroslav Novák (1961 - 1990)
• Vratislav Štěpánek (1991 - 1994)
• Josef Špak (1994 - 2001)
• Jan Schwarz (2001 - 2006)
• Tomáš Butta (2006 - )

Notes

1. ^ Bauerova, Ladka (27 January 1999) "Catholics wary of woman bishop" The Prague Post
2. ^ (July 1999) "World scan: Jana Silerova, Eastern Europe's first woman bishop" The Lutheran 12(7):
3. ^ Luxmoore, Jonathan (2001) "Eastern Europe 1997-2000: a Review of Church Life" Religion, State & Society 29(4): pp. 305-330, p. 327

References

• Nĕmec, Ludvík (1975) The Czechoslovak Heresy and Schism: the emergence of a national Czechoslovak church American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, ISBN 0-87169-651-7
• Tonzar, David (2002) Vznik a vývoj novodobé husitské teologie a Církev československá husitska Karolinum, Prague, ISBN 80-246-0499-X in Czech
• Urban, Rudolf (1973) Die tschechoslowakische hussitische Kirche J.G. Herder-Institut, Marburg/Lahn, ISBN 3-87969-103-7, in German

External links

• Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic
• Official Website of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church
• Eightieth Anniversary of Refoundation of the Czech Hussite Church: Address by Prof. ThDr. Zdeněk Sázava
• Hussite Faculty of Theology at Charles University, Prague
• CČSH Diocese of Prague
• CČSH Diocese of Brno
• CČSH Diocese of Kralove