A History of the Moravian ChurchHutton, J. E. (Joseph Edmund)
Religion
A History of the Moravian Church
Hutton, J. E. (Joseph Edmund)
Moravian Church -- History
Again, Bohemia, like Ireland, was the home of two rival populations. The
one was the native Czech, the other was the intruding German; and the
two had not yet learned to love each other. From all sides except one
these German invaders had come. If the reader will consult a map of
Europe he will see that, except on the south-east frontier, where the
sister country, Moravia, lies, Bohemia is surrounded by German-speaking
States. On the north-east is Silesia, on the north-west Saxony, on the
west Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate, and thus Bohemia was flooded
with Germans from three sides at once. For years these Germans had
been increasing in power, and the whole early history of Bohemia is
one dreary succession of bloody wars against German Emperors and Kings.
Sometimes the land had been ravaged by German soldiers, sometimes a
German King had sat on the Bohemian throne. But now the German settlers
in Bohemia had become more powerful than ever. They had settled in large
numbers in the city of Prague, and had there obtained special privileges
for themselves. They had introduced hundreds of German clergymen, who
preached in the German language. They had married their daughters into
noble Bohemian families. They had tried to make German the language of
the court, had spoken with contempt of the Bohemian language, and had
said that it was only fit for slaves. They had introduced German laws
into many a town, and German customs into family life; and, worse than
all, they had overwhelming power in that pride of the country, the
University of Prague. For these Germans the hatred of the people was
intense. "It is better," said one of their popular writers, "for the
land to be a desert than to be held by Germans; it is better to marry a
Bohemian peasant girl than to marry a German queen." And Judas Iscariot
himself, said a popular poet, was in all probability a German.
Again, as in Ireland, these national feuds were mixed up with religious
differences. The seeds of future strife were early sown. Christianity
came from two opposite sources. On the one hand, two preachers, Cyril
and Methodius, had come from the Greek Church in Constantinople, had
received the blessing of the Pope, and had preached to the people in the
Bohemian language; on the other, the German Archbishop of Salzburg had
brought in hosts of German priests, and had tried in vain to persuade
the Pope to condemn the two preachers as heretics. And the people loved
the Bohemian preachers, and hated the German priests. The old feud was
raging still. If the preacher spoke in German, he was hated; if he spoke
in Bohemian, he was beloved; and Gregory VII. had made matters worse by
forbidding preaching in the language of the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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