Orthodoxy in the Czech Republic

Mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius

The beginning of Christianity in the territory of the Czech Republic, Moravia and Slovakia dates back to the first half of the 9th century , when preachers from Greece , Wallachia and Germany came to this land. The success of the sermon was hindered by the fact that the missionaries acted separately and did not worship in Slavic, but in Greek and Latin . In addition, the German mission threatened the independence of the Moravian state ^[1] .

In the year 862, Saint Rostislav , Prince of Moravia ( 846-870 ), after the council, with his nobles (jupans) and people sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor Michael III with a request to send to Moravia such a preacher who would teach the people in his native language. On the advice of the prelate Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius , for this case, the scientists brothers Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius were elected. In 863, the holy brothers arrived in Moravia. Their missionary activities extended to the territory of modern Czech Republic and Slovakia. They created the alphabet - the verb , translated the Sacred Scriptures , liturgical and canonical books of the Orthodox Church into Slavic. All this contributed to the mass baptism of the people. The holy brothers planned to send their disciples prepared for priestly ordination to Consecration to Constantinople . However, political instability in the Byzantine Empire did not allow them to receive timely support from there ^[1] .

The active missionary activity of the Slavic enlighteners caused opposition from the German clergy , supported by part of the local feudal lords. The holy brothers were accused of heresy ^[1] .

In 867, Constantine and Methodius went to Rome . Here they were solemnly met by Pope Adrian II (867-872). The brothers brought with them the relics of St. Clement of Rome , which were laid in Rome in the temple, built in honor of this saint. February 14, 869 in Rome, Constantine died, who was buried in the Basilica of St. Clement . Before his death, he took monastic vows with the name of Cyril ^[1] .

Saint Methodius and the Slavic disciples of Saint Cyril were ordained to the holy degrees by Pope Adrian and sent to Pannonia at the request of the local prince Kotsel Blatensky. Soon, at the request of the same prince, St. Methodius was put in the Bishop of Pannon. Pannonia was removed from the power of the Bavarian bishops of the Latin rite and is directly subordinate to Rome. This caused discontent of the German clergy and feudal lords, who, after taking Methodius into custody, sent him to a prison in Swabia . The saint was released only after two and a half years ^[1] .

After this, St. Methodius was again sent to Moravia by Pope John VIII . Prince Svyatopolk , nephew of Saint Rostislav, who overthrew his uncle from the throne, was in power here. Saint Rostislav was blinded and imprisoned by the German princes, where he died. However, soon Svyatopolk broke with the Germans and began to support Slavic worship. Under his patronage, St. Methodius continued the missionary work of his brother. The saint traveled extensively in the Velokomoravskaya state, baptized the people and put priests from the Slavs. For example, around 874 they were baptized by the Czech prince Borzhivoy , his wife Lyudmila and their two sons. Methodius spent about a year in the Czech Republic, consecrating the first Christian churches here and setting several priests for the Czechs. On April 4, 885, St. Methodius died. His Slavic disciples were expelled from Great Moravia. Saints Clement , Naum and Angelar went south to Macedonia , Bulgaria and Serbia ; Saint Sava in the limits of modern Transcarpathia , and Holy Gorazd on Rus ^[1] .

Slavic worship was preserved in the Czech Republic until the beginning of the XII century , but never interrupted in Eastern Slovakia ^[1] .

After the expulsion of St. Methodius and his disciples at the end of the 9th century, the memory of their mission in the Czech lands was not destroyed. There has always been a desire for the revival of Slavic worship ^[1] .

Oriental Rite in the Roman Catholic Church

In 1346, the Moravian earl , later the Czech king and the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles IV , appealed to Pope Clement IX for permission to carry out Slavic worship in various places of the Czech kingdom. The Pope spoke out against this idea, but, based on the specific situation and thanks to personal friendship with Charles, he agreed to the opening of the Emau Monastery in Prague , in which monks from Croatia were placed, submitting to the Roman throne and performing worship in the Slavic language. The monastery was opened in 1347 and was named “On Slovaneh”. He played a special role in the spiritual life of the Czechs of the XIV - XV centuries ^[1] .

Hussite Church and Orthodoxy

The desire for greater independence and in particular the revival of Slavic worship led in the early 15th century to the Hussite wars . After the execution of Jan Hus in Constanta in 1415 , the Czech Republic withdrew from obedience to the Roman Catholic Church and became the first non-Catholic country in Western Europe ^[1] .

It is known that the Hussites were looking for an alliance with the Orthodox Church . In 1451 - 1453, negotiations were held in Constantinople about the possibility of the reunification of the Czech " Utraquists " (or the "similar ones" who called for communion under both species) with the Orthodox Church. In 1451 Constantinople was visited by the “pious priest” Konstantin Angelika, who presented the Book of Faith on behalf of the Czechs. The confession of the Hussites was recognized as completely Orthodox and Constantinople promised to send Orthodox clergy to the Czech Republic. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 interrupted the negotiations begun. After this, the Hussites began to develop towards a radical break with the church tradition and in the 16th century entered into an alliance with German Protestants ^[1] .

The first Orthodox believers

The first Orthodox after a split with the Roman Church appeared in the Czech Republic thanks to the Serbs , Slovaks and Carpathores .

In the revolutionary year of 1848, a Slavic congress was held in Prague, during which Serbian priest Pavel Stomatovich with the deacon Nikanor Gruzhich on June 4 celebrated Divine Liturgy in Church Slavonic before the stone sculpture of St. Wenceslas (Vyacheslav) in Nové Mesto in Prague (the territory of the present Wenceslas Square ) During this Liturgy, prayers for the spiritual awakening of the Slavic peoples were offered ^[1] .

In 1870, after the First Vatican Council, a group of 12 Czechs turned to the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Isidora with a request to reunite them with the Orthodox Church. The rite of accession was made in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral of St. Petersburg on the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in 1870 ^[1] .

Orthodox churches of the Russian Orthodox Church

In the early 1860s, the Prague Magistrate proposed to hand over to the Russian Orthodox Church the empty church of St. Mikulas (Nicholas) on Old Town Square , which previously belonged to the order of the Slavic Benedictines . In 1874, the church was consecrated, after which Orthodox services were held here regularly, although with some restrictions (it was forbidden to post announcements of worship on the walls of the church and to make religious processions on the square). The presence of an Orthodox church in the center of the Czech capital promoted the acquaintance of ethnic Czechs with Orthodoxy. At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, churches in Frantiskovy Lazne , Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázně were also opened ^[1] .

Orthodox Czechs

In 1867, the Czech agricultural community was founded in Volyn on favorable terms. By the beginning of the 20th century , about 30,000 Czechs moved here, of which 27,000 converted to Orthodoxy . Many of them, returning to the Czech Republic, remained Orthodox ^[1] .

In 1903, the Orthodox Conversation Society was established in Prague, which included 27 members. On the basis of this non-political union, it was planned to create an Orthodox parish in the future. The Austrian authorities regarded the interest in Orthodoxy as political unreliability, which could turn into “ Panslavism ” and “ Russophilism ”, and therefore the police investigated every case of a mass conversion to Orthodoxy ^[1] .

In 1905, Orthodoxy adopted 104 Czech Old Catholic , thanks in large part to the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the census of 1910, there were 1,063 Orthodox in the Czech Republic ^[2] .

Persecution during the First World War

After the outbreak of the First World War, the Austrian authorities began persecuting the Orthodox. The Church of St. Nicholas in Prague was taken away from the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian priest Nikolai Ryzhkov , who served as abbot of the church, was sentenced to death in 1917 on charges of treason. This sentence was not carried out only because the Russian government agreed to exchange Nikolai’s father for Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky of Uniate, who was taken prisoner after Lvov was captured by the Russian army. Having received his freedom, father Nikolai Ryzhkov left for Petrograd , where he died in 1920 ^[1] .

Czech Orthodox Diocese

In 1921 there was a revival of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, which at first also wished to unite with the Orthodox Church. After negotiations with the Serbian Patriarchate, Bishop Gorazd (Pavlik) was ordained. Subsequently, most of the Hussite church went through self-isolation and rejection of apostolic succession , and Bishop Gorazd with a minority created the Czech Orthodox diocese under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church . During the Second World War, he was killed by the Nazis, and the Orthodox were persecuted ^[1] .

Jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople

In 1923 in Constantinople he was ordained bishop of Prague Savvaty (Vrabets) . His jurisdiction operated in parallel with the jurisdiction of the Serbian , and later the Russian Church . He died in 1959 , after which this jurisdiction ceased to exist ^[1] .

Autocephalous Church

After the war, the Czech Orthodox Diocese, like the jurisdiction of Russian émigrés, was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate, from which it received autocephaly in 1951. The first primate was Elevfery (Vorontsov) . However, the act of proclaiming the autocephaly of the Czechoslovak Church was not recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, who continued to consider it autonomous in its submission ^[1] .

After the collapse of the communist system until the end of 1992, the early disintegration of the Czechoslovak federative republic into two independent states became apparent. In this regard, the Local Council of the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church, held December 11 - 12 in Presov , spoke in favor of preserving a single autocephalous Church, extending its jurisdiction to the territory of two independent states. However, in accordance with the new political situation, it was decided to change the official name of the Church. From now on, it became known as the "Orthodox Church in the Czech lands and Slovakia." A new Charter of the Church was adopted, according to which the united Metropolitan Council was divided into two independent bodies - the Metropolitan Council of the Czech lands in Prague and the Metropolitan Council of Slovakia in Presov. Primate of the Church could now be elected as the Archbishop of Prague and Archbishop Pryashevskaya. The Holy Synod and the Local Council remained united for the whole Church. Preševsky Cathedral in 1992 decided to canonize Moravian Prince Rostislav, the initiator of the Cyril and Methodius mission among the Slavs . Celebrations on the occasion of canonization were held October 29-30, 1994 in Presov and Brno ^[1] .

On January 1, 1993, the Czechoslovak Republic was divided into two states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, to whose territory the canonical authority of the united local Orthodox Church is extended.

On August 27, 1998, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople published the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos on the granting of autocephaly to the Holy Orthodox Church in the Czech lands and Slovakia, which is viewed by the Czechoslovak Church rather as an act of recognition of the autocephaly received by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1951 ^[1] .

Canonical Orthodoxy on the territory of the Czech Republic is represented by two dioceses of the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia : Prague and Olomouc-Brno .

Primate of the Church is Archbishop Rotovislav Presovsky (Gont) . Olomouc-Brno Diocese is headed by Simeon (Yakovlevich) . Metropolitan Christopher (Pulets) is at rest.

On the territory of the Czech Republic are 82 parish, and Orthodox believers number 20,533 people ^[3] . The Cathedral of the Prague Diocese and the main Orthodox church of the Czech Republic is the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius .

Non-canonical jurisdictions in the Czech Republic are practically absent. There is information only about one parish and the mission of the Greek Synodic Jurisdiction of the “ Synod of Opposing ”.

• Monastery of St. Procopius Sazavsky in Bridges
• Monastery of St. Gorazd in Rough Verbke
• Convent of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Litovlya

• Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius (Prague)
• Cathedral of St. Gorazd (Olomouc)

• History of the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia
• Bishop of the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia
• Dioceses of the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia
• Orthodoxy in Slovakia
• Christianity in the Czech Republic
• Religion in the Czech Republic
• List of Russian Orthodox churches in the Czech Republic

• V.V. Burega. Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia: Historical excursion .
• Hierarchy of Churches: Czech Republic