, native_name_lang = , image = Katedrála svatého Petra a Pavla.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Brno at night , abbreviation = , type =

National polity A polity is an identifiable political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any other group of p ...

, main_classification =

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, orientation =

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

, scripture =

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

, theology =

Catholic theology Catholic theology is the understanding of Catholic doctrine or teachings, and results from the studies of theologians. It is based on Biblical canon, canonical Catholic Bible, scripture, and sacred tradition, as interpreted authoritatively by ...

, polity = Episcopal , governance = ČBK , structure = , leader_title =

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, leader_name =

Francis Francis may refer to: People *Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome * Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Francis (surname) Places *Rural ...

, leader_title1 = , leader_name1 = , leader_title2 = , leader_name2 = , leader_title3 = , leader_name3 = , fellowships_type = , fellowships = , fellowships_type1 = , fellowships1 = , division_type = , division =

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdio ...

, division_type1 = , division1 =

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

, division_type2 = , division2 = , division_type3 = , division3 = , associations = , full_communion = , area = , language = Czech,

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, liturgy = , headquarters =

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, territory =

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, possessions = , founder = , founded_date = , founded_place = , independence = , reunion = , recognition = , separated_from = , branched_from = , merger = , absorbed = , separations = , merged_into = , defunct = , congregations_type = , congregations = , members = 3,333,800 , ministers_type = , ministers = , missionaries = , churches = , hospitals = , nursing_homes = , aid = , primary_schools = , secondary_schools = , tax_status = , tertiary = , other_names = , publications = , website = , website_title1 = , slogan = , logo = , module = , footnotes = The Catholic Church in the

is part of the worldwide

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

, under the spiritual leadership of the

curia Curia (Latin plural curiae) in ancient Rome referred to one of the original groupings of the citizenry, eventually numbering 30, and later every Roman citizen was presumed to belong to one. While they originally likely had wider powers, they came ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, and the Conference of Czech Bishops.

Overview

In the 2021 census 741 thousand people declared themselves Roman Catholics, another 8 309 people were Greek Catholics and additional 236 thousand people described themselves as simply Catholics. Together they represent over 9 % of Czech population. There are eight

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

s including two archdiocese. In addition, there is a separate jurisdiction for those of the

Byzantine Rite The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople. The canonical hours a ...

called the

Ruthenian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Czech Republic The Apostolic Exarchate of the Greek Catholic Church in the Czech Republic is an Eastern Catholic institution overseeing Catholics of byzantine-slavonic rite in the Czech Republic. It uses the localized Byzantine Rite in archaic Church Slavonic l ...

. The Catholic Church is the largest single religious denomination in the country.

History

Protestant Bohemia vs. the Habsburgs

After the death of

Jan Hus Jan Hus (; ; 1370 – 6 July 1415), sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as ''Iohannes Hus'' or ''Johannes Huss'', was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the insp ...

in 1415, the Czechs were mostly

Hussite The Hussites ( cs, Husité or ''Kališníci''; "Chalice People") were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation. The Huss ...

, a diverse sect which was considered heretical by the Catholic Church. The

Hussite wars The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, Eur ...

were fought over religious freedom in Bohemia as five consecutive crusades ordered by the Pope failed miserably. The majority of Hussites (the

Utraquist Utraquism (from the Latin ''sub utraque specie'', meaning "under both kinds") or Calixtinism (from chalice; Latin: ''calix'', mug, borrowed from Greek ''kalyx'', shell, husk; Czech: kališníci) was a belief amongst Hussites, a reformist Christi ...

s) eventually made peace with Rome in the

Religious peace of Kutna Hora Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

of 1485. However, the

Unity of the Brethren Unity of the Brethren (Latin ''Unitas Fratrum'') may refer to: *Unity of the Brethren (Czech Republic), the province of the Moravian Church in the Czech Republic *Unity of the Brethren (Texas), a Protestant church formed in the 1800s by Czech immig ...

, founded in 1457, maintained a radical course and eventually played an important role in the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

and widely disseminating its principles. By the end of the 16th century, less than 20% of the population remained Catholic. After their defeat in the 1620

Battle of the White Mountain The Battle of White Mountain ( cz, Bitva na Bílé hoře; german: Schlacht am Weißen Berg) was an important battle in the early stages of the Thirty Years' War. It led to the defeat of the Bohemian Revolt and ensured Habsburg control for the n ...

, Bohemia and Moravia were subjugated and forcefully re-converted to Catholicism by the imperial authorities, with Protestantism all but vanquished. The Czechs were made once again majority Catholic until after World War I, when anti-Catholicism fed by nationalist

anti-German sentiment Anti-German sentiment (also known as Anti-Germanism, Germanophobia or Teutophobia) is opposition to or fear of Germany, its inhabitants, its culture, or its language. Its opposite is Germanophilia. Anti-German sentiment largely began wit ...

and national revival perceiving the Church as historical enemy caused mass defections from the Church.

Following World War II

The reconstituted Protestant

Hussite Church The Czechoslovak Hussite Church ( cs, Církev československá husitská, ''CČSH'' or ''CČH'') is a Christian church that separated from the Catholic Church after World War I in former Czechoslovakia. Both the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and Mor ...

and the Czech Brethren were major beneficiaries of this defection from Catholicism until after World War II, when the overall belief in organized religion started to fall steeply. In addition, the

Sudeten Germans German Bohemians (german: Deutschböhmen und Deutschmährer, i.e. German Bohemians and German Moravians), later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of ...

, who were those

Austrians , pop = 8–8.5 million , regions = 7,427,759 , region1 = , pop1 = 684,184 , ref1 = , region2 = , pop2 = 345,620 , ref2 = , region3 = , pop3 = 197,990 , ref3 ...

who ended up within Czech borders after World War I, were mostly Catholics, and their expulsion after World War II also reduced the Church's presence. Over 90% Catholic in 1910, the Czech Republic is now reduced to some 10%.

Communist regime

The

Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...

, which seized power in 1948 in what was then

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, confiscated all the property owned by churches and persecuted many priests. Churches were then allowed to function only under the state's strict control and supervision and priests' salaries paid by the state. Churches were seized, priests jailed or executed and those allowed to celebrate liturgies did so under the supervision of the secret police. After the

Velvet Revolution The Velvet Revolution ( cs, Sametová revoluce) or Gentle Revolution ( sk, Nežná revolúcia) was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations agains ...

, some churches and monasteries were returned, but the churches have since sought to get back other assets such as farms, woodlands and buildings.
/ref> During the Communist regime, various underground Catholic movements existed. Among these is the Koinotes group, centered on Bishop Felix Davidek, whose vicar general was

Ludmila Javorová Ludmila Javorová (born 31 January 1932 in Brno) is a Czech Roman Catholic woman who worked in the underground church during the time of communist rule in Czechoslovakia and served as a vicar general of a clandestine bishop. She was one of a n ...

, ordained by him to the presbyterate.

2012 Agreement

In January 2012 the Czech government agreed to pay billions of dollars in compensation for property seized by the former totalitarian regime from the Church. The compensation plan was to be spread over 30 years Under the plan, the country's 17 churches, including Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, would get 56 percent of their former property now held by the state – estimated at 75 billion koruna ($3.7 billion) – and 59 billion koruna ($2.9 billion) in financial compensation paid to them over the next 30 years. Eighty percent of funds and property will go the Catholic Church, by far the biggest recipient. The state will also gradually stop covering their expenses over the next 17. In 2008, a similar bill was approved by the government but Parliament rejected it.

Structure

Archdiocese of Prague The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Prague (Praha) ( cs, Arcidiecéze pražská, la, Archidioecesis Pragensis) is a Metropolitan Catholic archdiocese of the Latin Rite in Bohemia, in the Czech Republic. The cathedral archiepiscopal see is St. Vit ...

** Diocese of Plzeň ** Diocese of Litoměřice **

Diocese of České Budějovice In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

** Diocese of Hradec Králové * Archdiocese of Olomouc **

Diocese of Brno The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brno ( la, Brun(ensis)) is a diocese located in the city of Brno in the ecclesiastical province of Olomouc in the Czech Republic. History * 1296: A collegiate (latter the cathedral) chapter established in Brno ...

** Diocese of Ostrava-Opava About 200 of the Czech Republic's 1,370 priests are from neighbouring Poland. :pl:Kościół katolicki w Czechach

References

External links

* Tomáš Petráček
Bohemian Secularity: How Czech Society and State went from "Catholic" to "World´s most Atheist"
{{Authority control