The Heretic King of Bohemia

I recently finished Frederick Heymann's George of Bohemia: King of Heretics (1965, Princeton University Press). It's a weighty and laborious read but necessary for anyone seeking to understand the history of Hussitism.

Comenius and the Swedish Occupation of Lissa

As reported in a previous piece the Bohemian Brethren who would later become the Moravians were involved in the 1618 Protestant plot to install Frederick V of the Palatinate on the throne of Bohemia. The Habsburgs responded, defeated the Utraquist-led Protestant forces and launched a vicious Counter-Reformation that would almost eradicate Protestantism in Bohemia. Though minor players and a minority within Bohemian Protestantism, the Brethren would suffer severe persecution. The war soon expanded and would become the Thirty Years War enveloping much of Central Europe. After the Habsburgs had scored tremendous victories and seemed poised to win the war - and roll back Magisterial Protestant gains from the previous century, the Swedes invaded under Gustavus Adolphus in 1630 - landing in Pomerania. The tide would quickly turn.

The Bohemian Brethren and the Crowning of Frederick V

I've been working my way through Edmund Alexander de Schweinitz's The History of the Church Known as the Unitas Fratrum; or, The Unity of the Brethren, Founded by the Followers of John Hus (1885), and I was once again particularly struck by the episode leading up to the Thirty Years War and the Counter or Anti-Reformation that was the result.

After the 1618 Defenestration of Prague, the Protestant uprising against the Habsburg Ferdinand II, the various Protestant leaders of Bohemia (Utraquists and Lutherans) decided to reject Ferdinand's claims and instead appealed to the Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate to come and be their king.

Musing on The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance and Forty Years that Shook the World (I)

Patrick Wyman's The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance and Forty Years that Shook the World (published in 2021 by Twelve) focuses primarily on the years1490-1530. He argues this period was critical for understanding the modern world as the West moved through these four decades of transition.

In the process of surveying some of the main historical events of this period, he teases out key cultural markers that (he argues) set the stage for the coming period and the world we know today.

The Unity of the Brethren and the Magisterial Reformation (Part 2)

For the Bohemian Brethren, the contacts with the Magisterial Reformation produced mostly negative results. Swept up into the political struggle, the theology and ethics of the Reformation produced worldliness and compromise in their lives. The net sum was that their movement was forced to pay a vicious price in the aftermath of the Schmalkaldic War. Though attempting to keep their distance at times, they were now part of the larger Protestant movement and (willingly or not) they were caught up in the catastrophe and bloodletting known as The Thirty Years War.

The Unity of the Brethren and the Magisterial Reformation (Part 1)

A good resource regarding the formative years of the Moravian Church is The History of the Unity of Brethren (A Protestant Hussite Church in Bohemia and Moravia) by Rudolf Rican. First published in the 1950's, the available English translation (by C. Daniel Crews) came out in the 1990's. It's published by The Moravian Church in America.

The book begins with the martyr Jan Hus (1372-1415) and other dissident movements in Bohemia such as the Waldensians. Petr Chelčický (c.1380-1460) also receives significant treatment as he came to exert a great deal of influence on the early Brethren movement – itself a derivative of the larger Hussite wave.

Some Notes and Comments on: The History of the Protestant Church in Hungary

The History of the Protestant Church in Hungary from the beginning of the Reformation to 1850 is a commendable historical work. It value is both inherent as a historical text and in what can be extrapolated from it – which in some cases may result in observations and applications beyond the intention of the anonymous author. The work first appeared about 1854 and was translated into English by one Dr. Craig.

The Hussite Spectrum

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (VII)

The Great Schism which erupted in 1378 generated a new wave of dissent which while not unrelated to the earlier movements and impulses, nevertheless generated more radical factions which for a season took up the sword. These movements failed and yet in most cases the core ideas and commitments endured and the survivors would eventually merge back into the non-violent sword and coin rejecting, non-Sacralist and separatist posture of the movement's first wave. They would not be challenged or tempted again with regard to Sacralism until the time of the Magisterial Reformation.

Europe's Ghosts, Essential Questions and the Ever-Problematic Balkans

https://www.euractiv.com/section/enlargement/news/europe-risks-losing-strategic-clout-in-western-balkans/

In some respects I was surprised by the candid language in this editorial. I was not surprised by the message but by its directness.

While democracy is evoked and prosperity mentioned, the key term is security. The EU project needs to consolidate all of Europe in order to meet its goals. To create a bloc, a fortress Europe it cannot have dissenting or even rebel provinces rooted in its underbelly.

At a time when everyone is reflecting on the thirty year anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the event which effectively shifted gears and set the European project in full motion... the anniversary is marked by angst and frustration. The project of consolidation under the auspices of the EU and NATO has experienced great success but its failures are glaring and represent existential dangers.

Hungary's Bitter Road Through Modern History

Viktor Orban is at this point all but a pariah to the powers that be in Brussels and Washington. He continues to resist the EU and has voiced considerable opposition not only to the policies of Europe but even the ideology of the post-war project.