Greek Catholics in Prague (1918–1950)

Abstract

Before the establishment of Czechoslovakia, a small community of Greek Catholics lived in Prague. Mostly they were soldiers, but after the First World War, Greek Catholic believers from the east of the republic began to move to the new metropolis and their numbers grew both in the city and in the Czech lands. Belonging to a religious denomination motivated them to associate and form a Greek Catholic parish as an offi cial branch of the church. The small community added to the colourful mosaic of the religious and cultural life of the town. This study examines the eff orts to formalize the parish and presents the involvement of local church members in religious, cultural and charitable areas. The positive development taking place between 1918 and 1938 was disrupted by political changes in the Central European area. The consequences of the rise of Nazism and Communism, which marked the lives of both priests and individual believers, are illustrated through the example of a small community. Their fates are intertwined with those of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Greek Catholic Church.