Bohemian Reformation

The Bohemian Reformation (also known as the Czech Reformation), preceding the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, is a Christian movement in the late medieval and early modern Kingdom and Crown of Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) striving for a reform of the Roman Catholic Church.

Lasting for more than two hundred years, it has a significant impact on the historical development of Central Europe.The Bohemian Reformation is not an internally unified movement and does not remain immutable.

Although it splits in many groups, some characteristics are shared by all of them—communion under both kinds, distaste for the wealth and power of the church, emphasis on the Bible preached in a vernacular language and on an immediate relationship between man and God.

The Bohemian Reformation includes particularly the efforts to reform the church before Hus, the Hussite movement (including e. g. Taborites and Orebites), the Unity of the Brethren and Utraquists or Calixtines.Together with the Waldensians and the Lollards (led by John Wycliffe), the Bohemian Reformation is considered to be the precursor to the Protestant Reformation.

These movements are sometimes referred to as the First Reformation in the Czech historiography.

Despite the influence of the German and Swiss Reformations, the Bohemian Reformation does not bleed into them, although many of Czech Utraquists grow closer and closer to the Lutherans.

The Bohemian Reformation keeps its own development until the suppression of the Bohemian Revolt in 1620.

The victorious restored King Ferdinand II decides to force every inhabitant of Bohemia and Moravia to become Roman Catholic in accordance with the principle cuius regio, eius religio of the Peace of Augsburg (1555).

The Bohemian Reformation ends up being diffused in the Protestant world and gradually loses its distinctiveness.

The Patent of Toleration issued in 1781 by Emperor Joseph II does not lead to a restoration of the Bohemian Reformation.

Joseph II does not respect the Bohemian religious tradition and therefore only Lutheran, Calvinist and Eastern Orthodox faiths are made legal in the Crown of Bohemia and other parts of his realm.

In spite of the extinction of the Bohemian Reformation as a distinctive Christian movement, its tradition does not disappear.

Many churches (not only in the Czech Republic) do not forget their legacy, refer to the Bohemian Reformation and try to continue its tradition e. g. the Moravian Church (the continuator of the scattered Unity of the Brethren), Protestant Church of Czech Brethren (Českobratrská církev evangelická), Czechoslovak Hussite Church (Československá církev husitská), Church of Brethren (Církev bratrská), Unity of Brethren Baptists (Bratrská jednota baptistů) and others.

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