Page:The religious conditions in Czechoslovakia.djvu/7

 In more recent times the Unitarians have been added, the number being stated as 10,000.

The numbers in the Orthodox Church increased also upon the historical territories from 1,054 to 9,082 and in Slovakia from 1,439 to 2,877.

The Armenian Orthodox Church forms an insignificant fragment, its numbers having increased from 9 to 152.

There has been also quite an increase among the Old Catholics, the majority of whom are of German nationality. In 1910 they numbered 17,121, in 1921 the corresponding figure was 20,255.

By the addition of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia we have received a considerable number of Jews,—354,342 in all, but this number is smaller as compared with 1910, when there were 361,650. The figures in detail are as follows:—

Bohemia: 79,777; Moravia: 37,989; Silesia: 7,317; Slovakia: 135,918; Carpathian Ruthenia: 87,041.

Side by side with the religious movement in the Churches there is a very marked interest in spiritualism, the number of spiritualists being estimated at about two or three hundred thousand. Theosophy and other similar exotic cults are also in evidence.

These ecclesiastical conditions in our Republic and particularly the religious movement are characterised by the strength of the Hussite tradition and the religious attachment to the Reformation; this movement amongst us corresponds to the analogous Orthodox movement in Carpathian Ruthenia.

All the Protestant Churches go back to the Reformation; the Czech Reformists and Lutherans have united as the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren; the Free Reformed Church is now the Unity of the Czech Brethren; the Baptists are the Fraternal Unity of Chelcicky, while the Unity of Brethren has a direct tradition and continuity with the Brotherhood. The Czechoslovak Church is a Hussite Church and the Unitarians also go back to the Brotherhood.

The religious movement amongst us has aroused great attention abroad, attention which is all the greater because nearly everywhere Catholicism is gaining ground or at least authority, while amongst us the tradition of the Reformation is stronger. Even abroad it is now beginning to be understood that the Czech problem was of more than merely a narrow political significance.

It is natural that the new and the renewed Churches will seek contact with the foreign Churches cognate to them. The Czechoslovak Church is cognate to the Anglican and