The Uniate churches in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

The position of the Uniate, or Eastern-rite Catholic, Church was among the issues which enjoyed a brief period of public discussion during the Prague Spring of 1968 in Czechoslovakia. The lifting of censorship under Dubcek was the only occasion when the Uniate question was raised in any East European country since the inauguration of the communist regimes. Suppressed since 1950, the existence of the Czechoslovak~ Uniate Church was renewed in 1968, and weathered the Soviet invasion to become perhaps the most remarkable surviving fruit of the suppressed democratic movement. In 1948 there was just one Uniate diocese, that of Presov in Slovakia. There were, however, 305,000 adherents massed in this one area, in contrast to the scattered and small Orthodox Church, numbering only 35,000 divided into three dioceses. On 28 April 1950 the union with Rome was abolished and all the Uniates of Czechoslovakia were declared Orthodox. With the outlawing of the Uniate Church, persecution of those who remained faithful to it began, but many continued to attend Latin-rite churches or to hold Uniate meetings in secret. After eighteen years of silence, in 1968 Slovak Uniates began to petition for the re-establishment of their Church. A number of former Uniate priests signed a six-point request for the restoration of privileges and complete freedom of belief. A flood of letters from believers and a debate on the issue in the press led to an official admission of the State's guilt. The government permitted an open gathering of Uniate representatives to reconstitute their Church. 135 priests and 66 laymen met on 10 April at Kosice, and, in the prevailing mood in Czechoslovakia, were able to go ahead rapidly with their programme. Public opinion in the affected areas was on their side, and even some members of the Orthodox Church recognized the justice of their claims. The government intervened with the decision that each parish should hold an election to decide whether to remain Orthodox or to return to the Uniate Church. It was Gustav Husak, later the Party leader in Czechoslovakia, who approved this measure. There was to be a joint commission of State administrators and representatives of both the Orthodox and the Uniate Churches, whose duty would be to supervise the parish elections within six months. For