CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Hussite Hullabaloo

In the year 1415, Emperor Sigismund, the perfidious ruler of the Holy Roman Empire and the last of the Luxemburg dynasty, had burned at the stake one John Hus, protestant against the Catholic Church (he is alleged to have intimated that the Antichrist might be found at Rome), and a hero of Bohemia.

Last week, on the 510th anniversary of John Hus’s death, Czecho-Slovakia celebrated her first “Nation Day” by commemmorating Hus. Up went the Hussite flag over the Presidential Castle and loud and strong were the cries from Rome. The Papal Nuncio was recalled and the Czecho-Slovak Minister to the Holy See was ordered to return to Prague. The situation had the earmarks of a first-class row.

To be sure, the Hussite celebrations were only part of the causes of Catholic hostility. In Catholic eyes the Czecho-slovak State was formed by a group of heretics and, as a matter of fact, the leaders of the nation are today mainly Protestant or “liberal freethinkers.” One of the first things done when the new Republic had caught its wind was to seize Church property, much to the discomfiture of Rome, and then to make a bold bid for a National Church. The Hussite celebrations were the sparks which caused the explosion.

To make the picture still more extraordinary, three fourths of the people are Roman Catholics. The Government, which is predominantly anti-Catholic, cannot last without Catholic support and hence, while the Socialists are demanding a break in diplomatic relations, suppression of religious teaching and complete separation of Church and State, the Catholics, as the greatest political force, have to be mollified.

In a Slovak village—the Protestants are mainly Czechs—a priest rashly called President Masaryk a heretic. Gendarmes arrested him after a struggle with the people in which many were wounded, one killed.