Page 224 - Stati inu obstati, revija za vprašanja protestantizma, letnik XIII (2017), številka 25, ISSN 1408-8363
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SYNOPSES, ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN
mained groups and circles that were not satisfied either with adjusting with Catholics or
with the situation in which the Church, including the Hussite Church, actually found
itself. Consequently they clustered around individual preachers and tried, at least within
a narrow circle of fellow thinkers, to practise a Christianity which would be as similar as
possible – in its morals and Christian life – to the early apostolic church. The first such
circles and groups began to form in Prague around 1450.
At the very beginning, the Czech Brethren were beyond the law, for in their theology
and their behaviour they were far away from the dogmas of the Roman Church, which was
true also of the Utraquist Church in the Czech kingdom: 1) they repudiated the dogma of the
Roman Church concerning the transubstantiation of the bread and wine at the Lord's supper;
2) they did not wish to bow before the host; 3) they did not believe that a priest living in
sin, merely through handing out the sacrament (ex opere operato), would be consecrated; 4)
because of their literal understanding of the Sermon on the Mount they did not wish to give
oaths. Most of all, they were far from agreement with the Utraquist and Catholic Churches,
and thus outside the rights granted by the Compactata of Jihlava on the question of the in-
vestiture of priests. Here, it seems, they broke with the tradition of apostolic succession and
the consecration of priests in the Roman Church, since they thought there could not be true
priests in that church. The Czech Brethren therefore wanted to separate from such a type of
priesthood. Since they did not find a model for their own manner of consecration either in
the Orthodox Church or the Waldensian Church, they finally decided on the consecration
of priests who were selected by lot from among the believers, although taking into account
their functions, knowledge, gifts, and especially their exemplary Christian life, all of which
ought to indicate the capability of these people for priestly service.
Even before Luther, the Christian Renaissance influenced the Czech Brethren; this
developed in Italy as a part of humanism and then easily spread through Europe. The
Czech Brethren were not unknown to Luther even before 1517, since their writings were
published from 1511 in the German-speaking region, either as independent books or
as parts of larger volumes, but in most cases such editions represented a considerable
theological sensation, which increasingly turned the attention of German theologians
to theology and the defence of the small, persecuted, but independent and persevering
Czech Reformed Church. Luther's direct contacts with the Czech Brethren came about
through the role of Jan Hus's key text in Luther's historical appearance as a reformer.
This was because Hus's crowning work De Ecclesia became the handbook for all those in
the German lands who, after the Leipzig dispute between Luther and Eck (1519), took
part in the heated debates about papal authority and stood up against the worldly power
of the Holy Father; it became a real Noah's ark of anti-papal arguments, which Luther
as well as his fellow thinkers drew from Hus's work. Hus thus became an intellectual
patron, a saint and protector, the leading intellectual authority of critics of the dealings
of the pope, the Roman Curia and the Roman Church, and especially the predecessor of
Martin Luther's similar kind of writings.
Key words: Reformation, the Czech kingdom, the Czech Brethren, Luther, Hus
222
mained groups and circles that were not satisfied either with adjusting with Catholics or
with the situation in which the Church, including the Hussite Church, actually found
itself. Consequently they clustered around individual preachers and tried, at least within
a narrow circle of fellow thinkers, to practise a Christianity which would be as similar as
possible – in its morals and Christian life – to the early apostolic church. The first such
circles and groups began to form in Prague around 1450.
At the very beginning, the Czech Brethren were beyond the law, for in their theology
and their behaviour they were far away from the dogmas of the Roman Church, which was
true also of the Utraquist Church in the Czech kingdom: 1) they repudiated the dogma of the
Roman Church concerning the transubstantiation of the bread and wine at the Lord's supper;
2) they did not wish to bow before the host; 3) they did not believe that a priest living in
sin, merely through handing out the sacrament (ex opere operato), would be consecrated; 4)
because of their literal understanding of the Sermon on the Mount they did not wish to give
oaths. Most of all, they were far from agreement with the Utraquist and Catholic Churches,
and thus outside the rights granted by the Compactata of Jihlava on the question of the in-
vestiture of priests. Here, it seems, they broke with the tradition of apostolic succession and
the consecration of priests in the Roman Church, since they thought there could not be true
priests in that church. The Czech Brethren therefore wanted to separate from such a type of
priesthood. Since they did not find a model for their own manner of consecration either in
the Orthodox Church or the Waldensian Church, they finally decided on the consecration
of priests who were selected by lot from among the believers, although taking into account
their functions, knowledge, gifts, and especially their exemplary Christian life, all of which
ought to indicate the capability of these people for priestly service.
Even before Luther, the Christian Renaissance influenced the Czech Brethren; this
developed in Italy as a part of humanism and then easily spread through Europe. The
Czech Brethren were not unknown to Luther even before 1517, since their writings were
published from 1511 in the German-speaking region, either as independent books or
as parts of larger volumes, but in most cases such editions represented a considerable
theological sensation, which increasingly turned the attention of German theologians
to theology and the defence of the small, persecuted, but independent and persevering
Czech Reformed Church. Luther's direct contacts with the Czech Brethren came about
through the role of Jan Hus's key text in Luther's historical appearance as a reformer.
This was because Hus's crowning work De Ecclesia became the handbook for all those in
the German lands who, after the Leipzig dispute between Luther and Eck (1519), took
part in the heated debates about papal authority and stood up against the worldly power
of the Holy Father; it became a real Noah's ark of anti-papal arguments, which Luther
as well as his fellow thinkers drew from Hus's work. Hus thus became an intellectual
patron, a saint and protector, the leading intellectual authority of critics of the dealings
of the pope, the Roman Curia and the Roman Church, and especially the predecessor of
Martin Luther's similar kind of writings.
Key words: Reformation, the Czech kingdom, the Czech Brethren, Luther, Hus
222
