The Bohemian Reformation

The Czechoslovakian, or Bohemian, people made as­tonishing contributions to the advance of the Protestant Reformation.

R. RUHLING, Former Field Secretary, General Conference

The Czechoslovakian, or Bohemian, people made as­tonishing contributions to the advance of the Protestant Reformation. Valuable lessons for our time may be learned from their wonderful and noble deeds. One historian maintains that there is no nation or peo­ple on earth that has suffered so much for their faith, and that nowhere has so much blood been shed in fighting for religion as in Bohemia.

Martin Luther, in his commentary on the prophet Isaiah, declared, "The gospel we now have was bought for us with the blood of Huss and Hieronirnus." The Bo­hemian Reformation began more than one hundred years before Luther's time, and the church historian is handicapped in his ef­forts to present a complete picture of it because during the Counter Reformation that followed, most of the writings and doc­uments were destroyed.

Christianity was brought to Bohemia not from Rome or from the Roman Catholics but from the East—the Greek Orthodox (Pravoslavni) Church. Two Greek mission­aries, Cyril and Methodius, came from Con­stantinople (Istanbul) in the year 863 to Bohemia and made that land their field of labor. After Christianity was well estab­lished there, the pope of Rome cast his eye on Bohemia, eager to bring that coun­try into his orbit. As usual, he tried to ac­complish this through the ruling monarch. The Duke or Prince of Bohemia finally accepted the Roman Catholic faith. But it was not so easy to persuade the peo­ple to do so; in fact, for centuries Rome never fully succeeded in this objective.

The Waldenses came to Bohemia in the beginning of the thirteenth century, spread­ing their doctrines and finding willing lis­teners. No one knows exactly how many ad­herents the Waldenses had in Bohemia. Some historians assert that more than 60,­000 Bohemians became Waldenses.

Forerunners of Huss

Three very well-known Bohemian re­formers were the forerunners of Huss. The first of these, Konrad von Waldhausen, died in 1369. It is significant that the Bohemian reformers were mostly ex-priests who had raised their voices against apostasy in their church. They felt the Catholic Church did nothing to build up the morality of the people, or to help them spiritually. Kon­rad von Waldhausen spoke out strongly against the monks and their idleness. His preaching centered around the prophecies of the end of the world. His extensive in­fluence was felt mainly among the German peoples since he himself was German.

The second was Milicz von Kremsier (1374). He was a Bohemian, but was able to speak the German language. A great orator, he frequently preached four or five times a day. Churches often were so crowded that he had to leave the build­ing and speak in the open. An eager Bible student, he was especially interested in the books of Daniel and the Revelation. His study of these prophecies led him to the conviction that the corrupted medieval church was Antichrist and that divine judgments would soon fall upon the church. He foresaw a reformation by which the church would be prepared for the sec­ond advent of Christ. The coming of the Antichrist became the burden of his ser­mons, and he did not spare the priests, bishops, and others in high places.

After considerable study of time proph­ecy, Milicz accepted the year-day principle of Joachim. Proceeding from the cruci­fixion of Christ, he believed the 1335 pro­phetic days would end in 1365-67, and that at that time the Antichrist would be fully revealed. Milicz pleaded with the Lord to free him from these convictions if they were not from Him. Finding no rest, how­ever, he was courageous enough to make a pilgrimage to Rome, because he wanted to tell the pope who the Antichrist was. Upon his arrival in Rome, Milicz was sur­prised to find the pope had gone to Avignon.

One day Milicz put a notice on the door of St. Peter's in Rome, announcing that he was going to speak about the Anti­christ. The cardinals and bishops immedi­ately came after Milicz and put him in prison. Apparently they did not care to know who the Antichrist was! While in prison Milicz wrote a booklet on the sub­ject, and later on, the cardinals and bishops allowed him to present his views, but to the clergy only. The historians state that "the doors of the church were closed dur­ing the sermon." "The Antichrist," he de­clared, "is not still to come, but has come already."

Because he was a favorite of King Charles IV, Milicz was sent home after the pope's return to Rome. "He [Milicz] was not satis­fied with the little good that could be ef­fected by his own personal labors in preach­ing. . . . He set up a school for preachers. . . . He founded an association composed of two to three hundred young men, all of whom resided under the same roof with himself, were trained under his influence, and by his society. He copied the books which they were to study, and gave them devotional books to copy themselves, for the sake of multiplying them."—AUGUSTUS NEANDER, History of the Christian Reli­gion and Church, vol. 5, p. 181. Later Milicz was summoned to Rome to stand trial, but before the tribunal was held, he died.

A third prominent Bohemian reformer was Matthias von Janow (1394). He was not such an outstanding orator, but he was a prolific writer and wrote many books and pamphlets. His writings, which he called the Old and New Testament Laws, could more appropriately be named "In­vestigations About True and False Chris­tianity." Matthias was a great Bible stu­dent. In order to study the Book of books, he affirmed that there was never a day in his life when he did not have his Bible along, carrying it everywhere with him. Like Milicz, Matthias declared that the An­tichrist was already living and personified in the pope.

John Huss (1369-1415)

The teachings and work of John Huss are quite well known, and plenty of liter­ature is available on this Reformer's life. He learned much from Wycliffe's writings. Attention, however, should be called to the fact that Milicz von Kremsier and Mat­thias von Janow went even further in their ideas of reform than did Huss.

Huss's influence began to make itself felt when he spoke against the relics of the saints. The assertion had been made that blood dropped from the wafer bread. Huss was sent by the bishop to the area in ques­tion to make investigation. Upon his re­turn he spoke very earnestly against such claims, stigmatizing them as a form of de­ceit by the priests, and admonishing the people rather to believe in the Word of God.

Huss had a remarkable knowledge of the Bible. While in prison in Constance he quoted various texts from the Bible in his writings without having access to a Bible. We are told that he knew most of the Scrip­tures by heart. The same is true of the Wal­denses, many of whom knew the Gospels, the Epistles, and even the whole New Tes­tament by heart. In that respect. they are an example to all Seventh-day Adventists who live in these tremendous times when the last reformation is due.

As early as in the time of Huss, trouble arose in Bohemia because the people wanted to retain the old practice of par­taking of both the chalice and the bread in the communion service. Huss was very much in favor of this position, which fact.

the Catholic Church held against him at the trial at Constance. One of Huss's mot­toes was: "The truth is victorious." He was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. In Bohemian, Huss means "goose," and be­fore his death he said: "Ye are now roast­ing a goose, but an eagle will come up and spread his wings all over Europe." Until recent years July 6 remained a day of spe­cial commemoration of the Reformer in every city, village, and hamlet in Czechoslo­vakia.

Huss wrote a Czech grammar and later revised the Bible accordingly. The original translation of the Bible into the Czech language had been accomplished before Huss's time, and the names of the transla­tors cannot be established with certainty. Huss was a true and sincere Christian. This is strongly indicated in his letters from prison to friends.

When in 1924 the President of Czechoslo­vakia, John Masaryk, participated in the July 6 celebrations in memory of Huss, the papal legate took offense and left the country in protest. The people were elated, considering it a victory, but in the end they had to give in to pressure from Rome, which again proves that even in our day a people are confronted with a most formidable power if they fight against the pope.

Were it not for the bitter experience the clergy had with the Bohemians after Huss was killed, they undoubtedly never would have allowed Luther to live. He probably would have met the same fate as Huss.

At War With the Hussites

The years following Huss's death were filled with bitter fightings, because the Hussites were not willing to surrender their privileges. The Austrian emperor sent troops to force them to obey. The Huss­ites answered the challenge by taking up arms and fighting for their liberties.

It is marvelous what these champions of religious freedom accomplished in those years. Against an army of more than 200,­000 men, 20,000 Hussites fought and came out victorious. Five separate crusades, largely financed by the pope, were waged against the Bohemians. In the end, the church had to allow the Bohemians the use of the chalice at the communion service.

Since the Bible played such a great role in their life, it was natural that the Bo­hemians used many Bible names; rivers were named Jordan; hills and mountains were given such names as Zion, and Horeb. They separated themselves entirely from the Catholic Church and renounced most of its forms and ceremonies. The great cry of the century was "Back to the Bible," and with great frankness the pope was called the Antichrist.

The Bohemian Christians called them­selves brethren and sisters. They studied the Bible, especially the book of Revela­tion, which led them to conclude that Christ's second coming was near at hand. They had, they believed, witnessed many of the signs Christ had predicted in Mat­thew 24, such as famine, flood, war, and rumors of war. In the year 1419 some 42,­000 persons gathered on a hill in southern Bohemia, expecting Christ's return. They were, of course, disappointed. They too had failed to understand that the gospel witness had not yet been preached in all the world.

Hard and trying times confronted the true Protestant believers. The rulers of the nation were on the side of the Roman Church and used every means at their dis­posal to extinguish the Protestant faith. Many lies were spread about them, and their religious exercises were misrepre­sented.

Their marriages were not recognized, and their children were looked upon as born out of wedlock. They could not bury their dead in the regular cemeteries. Spies were paid a certain amount for each per­son they succeeded in apprehending and bringing to the henchmen. Such money be­came an evil incentive for wicked persons, and faithful believers were driven to the mountains to find refuge. One historian affirms that in spite of everything, they did not waver in their faith or give up, but rather thanked the Lord that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name's sake. They pleaded for strength and pa­tience to remain true and faithful to the end.

Moravian Brethren

Simultaneously, another movement be­gan in the southern part of Moravia, under the leadership of Balthasar Humbaier (burned at the stake in Vienna in 1528). The founders of this movement came from Switzerland, where they had been perse­cuted, largely by Zwingli and his followers. In Moravia, the Brethren—as they were known—lived in villages and townships of from 100 to 2,000 inhabitants. Everything was held in common, as they sought to fol­low what they believed to be the example of the early Christians according to Acts 2. They even had community kitchens. The church elder distributed food and clothing where needed, and nobody was allowed to have a single penny of his own. After this manner they lived in Moravia for more than one hundred years. Even the Prince of Lichtenstein was a member of this sect.

Many doctrines we today accept as true Christian teachings were believed by these pious people, among them the Lord's Sup­per and foot washing; and most of them kept the seventh-day Sabbath. When I vis­ited Brunn in 1924, one of our church members told me he had learned from his mother that the seventh-day Sabbath had been observed in her family right up to her own time.

The Bohemian Brethren

Back in Bohemia, from the former Huss­ites, a new religious denomination grad­ually sprang up—the Bohemian Brethren. The more they studied the Bible, the more sure they became of their Protestant con­victions, and in due course they discarded the doctrines of the Catholic Church. It is worthy of note that they discontinued the baptism of babes and practiced adult bap­tism by immersion.

A number of outstanding men became the leaders of this group and worked with great success. In the writings of Peter Chelcicky (born about 1385) we find state­ments that remind us of those we now read in the Spirit of Prophecy writings; for in­stance: "One soul is worth more in the sight of God than the whole universe." Chelcicky definitely declared that the apos­tasy in the church had come about through the illicit union of church and state. Although Chelcicky seems not to have entered into the organization, some have called him the father of the Bo­hemian Brethren.

Their number increased continually in spite of the severe persecutions to which they were subjected in Bohemia. From all central Europe came peoples in all walks of life—unlearned men and scholars, farm­ers, priests, teachers, and even some of the nobility—people who were persecuted for their religion. Seeking refuge for their fam­ilies, they settled in Bohemia. They wanted to escape the corruption and per­secution of the church. Everywhere the clarion call was sounded: "Come out of her, my people" (Rev. 18:4). Historians report that at the end of the fifteenth cen­tury nine tenths of the population of Bo­hemia belonged to the Bohemian Breth­ren, which left but one tenth Roman Cath­olic. Notwithstanding, persecutions by the government and the church did not stop.

The Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War that followed was essentially a religious war. As a result the Bohemian Brethren were almost extin­guished, and the Reformation in Bohemia stopped. It is reported that following the loss of uncounted numbers who died in bat­tle or from famine and pestilence, some 36,000 families with 150,000 persons left Bohemia to find a new home in other countries of Europe, and even in Amer­ica. They settled wherever they could live according to their faith, and there the Bo­hemian Brethren proved to be "the salt of the earth and the light of the world." Bohemia itself was transformed into a desert, and the Austrian ruler had his unholy wish: "I would rather have a desert land than a country full of heretics."

The pope sent to Bohemia a special dele­gate by the name of Konias whose task it was to burn and destroy the Bohemian Brethren's books and writings. This man later boasted that he alone had burned 60,000 books. This wholesale destruction of such valuable documents makes it dif­ficult in our day to arrive at a clear pic­ture of all the doctrines of the Bohemian Brethren. The source material has to a very large extent been destroyed.

Count Zinzendorf

These emigrants from Bohemia were truly the gospel light of the world. Count Zinzendorf received his impetus for his mis­sion to the heathen from two of the Breth­ren. The denomination founded by him also named itself the Church of the Breth­ren. He sent the first two missionaries from Germany to the island of Saint Thomas, in Central America (1732). Later Count Zinzendorf himself came to North America and established new settle­ments such as Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, (now famous for the steel industry), and others, where again the Sabbath was in­troduced as the God-given day of rest.

Within a few decades more had been done to spread the gospel by the Church of the Brethren than had been done by the Protestant churches in 200 years. The in­fluence of this movement of the Brethren can be clearly traced to the time of the be­ginning of the Advent movement. We owe much to the founders and faithful members of that noble body of Christians.


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R. RUHLING, Former Field Secretary, General Conference

October 1959

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