Czechoslovak Hussite Church

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Church in Olomouc-Černovír (Czech Republic).

The Czechoslovak Hussite Church (Czech: Církev československá husitská CCH) is a Christian Church which separated from Roman Catholic Church after World War I in former Czechoslovakia. It traces its tradition back to the Hussite reformers and acknowledges Jan Hus (John Huss) as its predecessor.

The forerunner of the CCH was the Jednota (Union of the Catholic Czechoslovak Clergy), which was founded in 1890 to promote modernist reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, such as use of the vernacular in the liturgy and the adoption of voluntary rather than compulsory clerical celibacy. The radical movement that resulted in the foundation of a new Church began in the Christmas season of 1919, when Christmas masses were celebrated in the Czech language in many Czechoslovak churches. The CCH was officially established on January 8, 1920 by Dr. Karel Farský, who became its first Patriarch and author of its liturgy. It was known until 1971 as the Czechoslovak Church. The head of the Church continues to bear the title of Patriarch.

The Church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic, the Conference of European Churches, and the Leuenberg Community of Churches. Membership is estimated at between 100,000 and 180,000 adherents, mostly in the Czech Republic and some in Slovakia. There are 307 congregations divided into five dioceses situated in Prague, Pilsen, Hradec Králové, Brno, and Olomouc. There are approximately 266 priests in active ministry, of whom 130 are women. Candidates of ministry are prepared at the Hussite Faculty of Theology at Charles University in Prague.

Relations between the Church and its fellow members of the ecumenical movement are cordial, but remained strained with the country's Roman Catholic leadership. The first female bishop of the Czechoslovak-Hussite church was elected to a 7-year term of office in April 1999. In January 1999, Catholic Archbishop Miloslav Vlk initially made a public statement of disapproval, warning against election of a woman to this position and saying that it would cause deterioration of ecumenical relations. Following criticism by the Czech-Hussite Church for interfering in their affairs, Vlk retracted his remarks later in January and stated that the Roman Catholic Church would exert no pressure against her election.^{[citation needed]} The Czech-Hussite Church accepted the Archbishop's apology.