Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren

The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB) (Czech: Českobratrská církev evangelická; ČCE) is the largest Czech Protestant church and the second-largest church in the Czech Republic after the Roman Catholic Church. It was formed in 1918 in Czechoslovakia through the unification of the Protestant churches of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions. The church has about 115,000 members in more than 260 local congregations, which are broken down into 14 seniorates (presbyteries) throughout the Czech Republic.

Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren
ClassificationProtestant
OrientationUnited
Lutheran
Reformed
Bohemian
PolityPresbyterian
AssociationsWorld Council of Churches
Conference of European Churches
Lutheran World Federation
World Communion of Reformed Churches.
RegionCzech Republic
Origin17 December 1918
Official websitewww.e-cirkev.cz
Evangelical Church of the Savior in the Old Town of Prague – main church of the ECCB

In 2013, it reported 84,022 baptized members.[1] Numbers peaked in 1950 with 402,000 members;[2] since Communist rule, the Czech Republic's censuses found 203,996 members in 1991,[2] 117,212 in 2001,[3] and 51,936 in 2011.[4]

Origins

Reformation in the Czech lands started already in the 15th century, one century before the great Luther's Reformation. At that time, most Czechs (~85%) were Protestant; there were two Protestant churches: the Utraquist Hussite Church (1431–1620) and the Unity of the Brethren (1457–1620). (The latter was in the 1720s partially renewed outside of Czech territory as the Moravian Church.) However, non-Catholic churches were forbidden in 1620, when the Bohemian Revolt was decisively defeated and victorious Habsburg rulers imposed harsh Counter-Reformation measures on the Bohemian Crown. This ban was mitigated in 1781 by issuing the Patent of Toleration that permitted Lutheran and Reformed churches in the Habsburg Monarchy (yet full equality with Catholic faith and equality before the law Protestants only obtained as late as in 1867, when Austria-Hungary was created). Nevertheless, other minor churches were still forbidden until the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 1918.[5]

The ECCB was established in 1918 by unification of all Lutheran and Reformed churches in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia intending to be an successor of the Unity of the Brethren (and the Bohemian Reformation in general).

The ECCB is a member of the World Council of Churches, the Conference of European Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.[6]

References
  1. The Lutheran World Federation – 2013 Membership Figures Lutheran World
  2. "Tisíc let obyvatelstva v českých zemích". Snem.cirkev.cz. 2009-06-12. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
  3. "Katalog produktů | ČSÚ". Czso.cz. 2014-10-24. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
  4. "Úvodní stránka | SLDB 2011" (PDF). Czso.cz. 2014-11-14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2015-11-21.
  5. Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. "Od vzniku církve" (in Czech). e-cirkev.cz. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  6. Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. "Ecumenical relations". e-cirkev.cz. Retrieved 13 February 2018.

Further reading
  • Abrams, Bradley F. (2004). "Socialism and Protestant Intellectuals: The "Kingdom of God on Earth"?". The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-3023-2.
  • Cameron, Helen (1989). "Seventy Years of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (1918-88)" (PDF). Religion in Communist Lands. 17 (3): 230–246. doi:10.1080/09637498908431429.
  • Nešpor, Zdeněk R.; Vojtíšek, Zdeněk (2016). Encyklopedie menších křesťanských církví v České republice [Encyclopedia of smaller Christian churches in the Czech Republic] (in Czech). Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press. ISBN 978-80-246-3315-2.
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