After 1918, a Wilsonian Europe had no room for the Hapsburg Monarchy, and the deliberate elimination of the Hapsburg throne, put the altar of Christendom at the mercy of secular forces who saw it as a temporarily useful tool to be eventually phased out.
[Guardian] Czechs may not be very enthusiastic churchgoers but many of them easily accept the idea that fortune-tellers can predict the future, lucky charms bring good fortune or that the stars might influence their lives. Moreover, claims about Czech non-religiosity are also complicated by the growth of charismatic and evangelical movements in recent years. Even though the total number of evangelicals and charismatics is small, some of these denominations have multiplied their membership several times in the 10 years between the last two censuses.
Weak support for traditional church religion is partly a legacy of Czech nationalism of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and its interpretation of the country's religious history. Catholicism, which was the major religion at that time, was seen as an Austrian import that forcibly replaced the "true" religion of the Czech nation – Protestantism. The denunciation of the Hapsburg monarchy and German language and culture (though, paradoxically, the German-speaking urban intelligentsia played a major role in the first wave of Czech nationalism) thus also included also a rejection of the Catholic faith. Nationalist anti-Catholic arguments appealed to many Czechs even though most of the population remained formally affiliated to the Roman Catholic church.
Read entire article, here.
No comments:
Post a Comment