Ciao! Sono un americano che ha recentemente scoperto il videogioco “Kingdom Come Delivelence 2” che mi ha influenzato a conoscere la storia del tuo paese!
Dopo aver appreso il Sacro Romano Impero, la Boemia e come fossero i primi del 1400 e quanta influenza il cristianesimo aveva su tutta l’Europa durante il tempo dell’HRE, sono stato molto sorpreso di conoscere la mancanza di cristianesimo nella moderna Repubblica ceca rispetto ad altri paesi dell’Europa centrale.
Quindi dal tuo punto di vista, perché il cristianesimo e la religione nel suo insieme sono così poco importanti nel tuo paese?
Grazie!
Screenshot da Wikipedia, link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religion_in_europe
https://i.redd.it/q5j9r2fcbxqf1.jpeg
di The_RL_Janitor54
25 commenti
Because we are not stupid /s
Why should it be popular?
because religion – especially the officials – have been showing how corrupt they are pretty much since the 11th century or so. It only got worse from 1415 onwards, more so during the Habsburg era (1526-1918), which often included disregarding the religious freedoms earned in 1434. Religious officials, all the way to the Pope, often contributed to waging wars that impoverished the populace.
The commie times were just a final nail in the coffin, not the main cause.
That said, it’s one of the few things I’m proud – we don’t need religious brainwashing in today’s world. Religion shouldn’t be important at all in the 21st century, at least not in any decision-making aspect. Science and atheism are the way.
In the 15th century, Jan Hus and the Hussite movement challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. The movement was suppressed, but it left a long-lasting skepticism toward organized religion.
[Jan Hus – Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II take place in 1403 and Jan Hus was killed in 1414.
After the Battle of White Mountain (1620), the Habsburgs forced re-Catholicization on the Czechs. This created resentment, as religion was tied to political oppression. Many people kept their faith private or drifted into quiet non-belief.
The communist regime actively discouraged religion, nationalized church property, and persecuted clergy. This deepened the cultural distance from organized faith. Religion was often seen as unnecessary, outdated, or even suspicious.
At the end this is best result as we dont have religious fanatics and lunatics in our country.
Its a complex thing – As KC:D preludes – we had an early reformation under the Hussites (later reformations are actually in a big way based on it) which lead to several crusades and while ultimately the Hussites prevailed and avoided destruction, over time there was a push back to Catholicism, especially under the Habsburg monarchy. The people learned that religion is a way to oppress them, combined with false conversions and deportations of non-believers it damaged the religion forever (This is also why Christianity is a lot more prevalent in Moravia which never was very Hussite supporting). Then after we got our freedom we got pushed into communism which is also agressively Atheistic and worked further on undermining the religion. Leaving us as the most atheist country in the world by a big margin. People here look at religion more as some traditions that dont really have anything to do with belief but just cultural history. So you still have things like Christmas but people just dont really connect it with religion for the most part.
Why us and not Austria or Poland? Legacy and atheistic polititians at the right time. First we were heretics believing the church is rotten, then communists seeing cults as something toxic and harmful.
1)Husite wars uproted Catholic hold on Bohemia
2)30years war split the poulation even more
3)Bohemian culture was mostly formed and maintained by urban folk and by intelegencia
4)religion played second fidle during national revival
These are the main reasons and diferences compared to Slovakia and Poland
Slovakia got close to 70% there but i would guess its like 30-40tops, people automatically put themselves as christians during population census because they were baptised as a kids, even tho they dont believe in god. Same goes for parents and their kids, they automatically put you in
Perhaps despite having hard times quite often here, all the gods, angels and other staff weren’t improving situations in measurable way.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_White_Mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_White_Mountain)
[https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_%C4%8Desk%C3%BDch_katolick%C3%BDch_kn%C4%9B%C5%BE%C3%AD_a_%C5%99eholn%C3%ADk%C5%AF_perzekvovan%C3%BDch_nacistick%C3%BDm_re%C5%BEimem](https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_%C4%8Desk%C3%BDch_katolick%C3%BDch_kn%C4%9B%C5%BE%C3%AD_a_%C5%99eholn%C3%ADk%C5%AF_perzekvovan%C3%BDch_nacistick%C3%BDm_re%C5%BEimem)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat)
In short:
– 1415 – Execution of Jan Hus, who preached against practices inside of the church ->
– 1419–1434 – Hussite proto protestant movement created, religious wars against catholic church ->
– 1620 – defeat of protestants and lutherans on the white mountain, forced recatholization of Bohemia and Moravia by Habsburgs for 300 years ->
– 1918 – creation of the new state. Czech political parties like mladočeši, and the general population looked at catholic church as part of Habsburg monarchy ->
– 1939-1945 WW2 – persecution and executions of catholic priests ->
– 1948-1989 communism – persecution of catholic priests
– 1989-2025 – worldwide trend of abandoning religion
God wanted it that way
Look into Jan Hus and Husite wars.
Basically back in 15th century, before reformation and lutheranism, many Czech people moved away from official church to smaller, local, Husite church. But as it was smaller, local, it was not as strong, the religion/faith was more thing for yourself than some forced organized church. When Habsburgs started rulling Czechia, they forced back Catholicism, but Czechs kinda refused/ignored or were just playing it.
Communism ruled mostly over catholic and orthodox countries, where foundations were strong.
in Poland and Slovakia Catholic church had strong, deep roots, I dont think they ever had some strong reformation movement, so it was much harder to push it out of public life. Similarly Austria, which had some reformation, but not as strong.
If you look at Germany (eastern vs western) you will see similar pattern – Eastern Germany went much more atheist during communism than Western part of Poland, because they went through reformation, they did not have strong catholic roots either.
So it really is the “catholic/Orthodox” countries, who stayed strongly Christian and reformed/husite countries, who went atheist, because… There is not such a strong and forced tradition.
The communism is often put as the main cause in oversimplified history which is not true. It surely helped but not that much as you may see at other coutries that shared the same side behind the iron curtain. Look at Poland, Slovakia or many other countries where the Christianity is still strong.
It goes way back to Hus, crusades against us and forced recatholization later on and many other incidents when Czechs questioned the Catholic church way and were met with nothing but oppressive force was decisive factor in nowadays lack of faith or religion.
If we were able to freely follow our early version of “Protestantism” hundred of years before it was cool without oppresion then I think we would probably still remain Christian to some extent.
Interesting thing to point out, that in daily speech we still regularly use terms like:
Ježiši Kriste! – Jesus Christ!
Jižiši, Maria – Jesus, Mary!
Pro Boha – For God’s sake
Pane Bože – oh God (as in german “Herr Gott”)
ó můj Bože – oh my God!
Bůh ví – God knows
Kristova noho – Christ’s leg! – I myself don’t know why
Wrong question! Here is the correct one: What’s the point of Christianity in the 21st century?
Because Czechs are naturally skeptical and have a negative attitude toward everything that is imposed on them by authorities. And for centuries, the Catholic Church was one of the main authorities that influenced people’s everyday lives.
Later, the communist regime, which actively persecuted priests, also had some impact, but the origins of the aversion to organized religion date back to the 15th century.
After dealing with Hitler, then Stalin, and now Babis and Putin, it’s pretty hard to believe an imaginary omnipotent man in the sky must love us unconditionally.
There are a lot of historical reasons for that the Czechs are one of the most atheistic nations around the globe.
I remember reading about one Italian diplomat from 18th century who sent a letter to Pope saying that “Czechs, when they have any problems, rather go to pub than to church” 😆
We believe in Jedi 😉
Read about our history. We have no reason to believe god exists.
The real religion in the 19th century was nationalism. Where the established church supported it, it won. Where it opposed it, it lost. The Catholic Church in the 19th century was the church of the Habsburgs and the ruling ethnic Germans. It’s no surprise that it was not popular with a nationalist-minded Czech population.
I simply believe that Czechs were in the dark for so long they cannot believe in a god.
If you lived in a place where 5 crusades were called upon you, then two hundred years later had 30 years of war between Protestants and Catholics that wiped out around 70% of the population THEN had communist some three hundred years later plus a slew of other events…
You wouldn’t be religious either.
TLDR: 600 years of Christianity under various guises hammering the population here means they ain’t so religious.
Czechia was mostly catholic until gaining independence and through 1918-1921 millions of people converted to protestant and hussite churches. After WW2 the communist regime discouraged religion and reformed the hussite church to serve as a state religion that supports the regime, most people converted to it, but by the end of communist regime in 1991 the number of christians dropped to ~5 million (mostly hussite church) and in the decade that followed it dropped drastically to pretty much where it is now
So, long story short, we ain’t into that shit unless it’s necessary or beneficial. We have a history of church skepticism and forced conversions dating back to the 15th century which just made the people despise it. The communist regime helped get rid of it for good as a part of national identity and now it’s even looked down upon