Jan Hus
And now it's time for this week's edition of Czechs in History, in which we take a look a look at the lives of famous people in the history of the Czech Lands. Today, Nick Carey examines the life of Jan Hus, and the controversy that surrounds him to this day...
If you stand in the middle of Old Town Square, you will see a statue, a statue of a tall, gaunt man, facing forward, looking brave. This man is obviously a hero. I'm sure that most tourists must wonder who on earth this man could be and why he should have such a dramatic monument, and right in the heart of the city at that. This man is of course Jan Hus, and he fills a very important place in Czech history. He is part of the national identity, and his story continues long after his death almost 600 years ago.
Little is known about the early years of Jan Hus. There are conflicting estimates as to when he was born, but experts believe that this took place somewhere between 1369 and 1373. There is a general consensus that he was born in the small town of Husinec in South Bohemia, and that he probably went to school in nearby Prachatice.
What did Jan Hus preach? Was he a Protestant, like Martin Luther some hundred years later on? I put this question to Larry Cada of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Prague:
Other than his opposition to the personal wealth of the clergy, there were a number of the things that Jan Hus advocated which caused controversy within the Catholic Church. He was influenced in part by a more extreme English reformer, John Wycliffe, who called for sermons to be given in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, so that lay people could understand them. Hus himself translated parts of the Bible into Czech, and gave sermons in the vernacular. John Wycliffe, however, had other ideas that were unacceptable for the Church. He advocated remenance, whereby after the bread and wine has been blessed for Communion, it remains bread and wine, and at the same time the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Church believed that after blessing the bread and wine ceased to be, and this was in fact the blood and body of the Messiah. Wycliffe was condemned as a heretic, and his books were burned across Europe. It was Jan Hus' advocacy of some of Wycliffe's beliefs which were eventually to prove fatal.
Although the Bethlehem Chapel was always full for Jan Hus sermons, one of which was even attended by King Wenceslas IV, there was mounting pressure from conservatives against reformers such as Hus. In 1412, the Church moved against Hus for the first time, as Professor David Holeton of the Hussite Theoligcal Faculty at Charles University told me:
Even though Jan Hus had left the city, conservatives within the Church associated him with John Wycliffe, and there was an increasing number of people accusing him of heresy, and the Church took action again in late 1414. Larry Cada:
The execution took place on July 6th 1415. Jan Hus' ashes were then scattered in the River Rhine. David Holeton described the way Jan Hus' trial was run:
What was the reaction of the people in Prague to this event? Larry Cada:
The Hussite Wars that followed soon after Jan Hus' death lasted until well into the fifteenth century, and the movement itself continued, at times peacefully, until the Hussites were finally defeated at the Battle of Bila Hora in 1620.
Jan Hus' significance to the Czechs after his death went beyond his religious teachings, as Larry Cada told me:
Jan Hus' story does not end here, however. Although he has been celebrated almost as a saint by various Protestant churches, and especially in the Czech Republic, there has not been any recognition of Hus by the Catholic Church until recently. The Protestant churches in the Czech Republic have requested an apology from the Catholic Church for many years now. I asked David Holeton, who was also one of the members of the Hus Commission, why an apology would be necessary, almost six hundred years after Hus' death:
In 1990, Pope Jean Paul II visited Prague and set up a commission, made up of experts on Hus, to look into the events surrounding his death. The Hus Commission met in Rome last December to discuss its findings. At the end of this conference, the Pope declared that he regretted the death of Jan Hus. The Pope will apparently follow this up with an apology for Hus' execution on the first day of Lent this year. Since Jan Hus was executed almost six hundred years ago, isn't this perhaps too little too late? David Holeton:
As Jan Hus is celebrated as a saint in other churches, is there any likelihood that the Catholic Church will ever canonise him?:
Whether or not the Catholic Church places Hus on the calendar, it is unlikely that this will have much impact on the way the Czech people feel about him. July 6th, the day he was burned at the stake, is a national holiday in the Czech Republic. If the Pope does apologise for his execution, at least some of the controversy surrounding his death may laid to rest.
