Prague, August 23, 2024
Photo: pp-eparchie.cz
The Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands (part of the autocephalous Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands and Slovakia) objects to unprecedented accusations from politicians and their attempts to manipulate the Church—tactics reminiscent of the Communist authorities in the 20th century.
The Prague Diocese published yesterday a strong response to the Senate Security Committee’s call for the state to investigate both the Russian Orthodox Church’s representation parish in Karlovy Vary and the entire autocephalous Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands.
The committee’s call is the latest in a string of moves against the Russian Orthodox Church since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. In April 2023, the Czech Republic placed sanctions on His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and in June of this year, Czech courts approved the expulsion of the rector of the Russian Church’s representation church, with the canceling of his residence permit. He had served in the republic without incident since 2001.
However, now the Senate is calling for the state to move beyond the Russian Church and to investigate even its own Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands, which has no administrative connection to the Russian Church.
As His Eminence Archbishop Michael of Prague expresses in his response, the Church is understandably quite concerned about such a manipulative move from the state.
The Archbishop especially notes that not only did the Senate Security Committee not reach out to the Church for discussion before appealing for an investigation of the Church, but it explicitly ignored the Church’s offer to send a representative to answer any and all questions.
The committee “expresse[d] the conviction that freedom of religion and association should not be misused for illegitimate influence of a hostile foreign power.” Abp. Michael responds that it’s no better when a domestic political power does the same thing.
The Prague Archbishop also strongly rejects the committee’s vague accusation that the Church in the Czech Lands has increasingly come under Russian influence since 2014.
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Interestingly (though not mentioned by Abp. Michael), in the same period, the Church has been quite concretely affected by the influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 2015, hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Emmanuel of Gaul and Arsenios of Austria, consecrated Bishop Isaiah (Slaninka) without the blessing or recognition of His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav or the Czech-Slovak Holy Synod, in order to create an “alternative Synod” in the Church, with a bishop specifically representing the interests of Constantinople.
The Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia was granted full and total autocephaly by its Mother Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, in the 1950s, but the tomos of autocephaly forced upon it by Constantinople in 1998 allows for such interference from Constantinople hierarchs.
Bp. Isaiah has caused many problems for the Church. For example, in 2019, he specifically violated the decision of his own Holy Synod by concelebrating with the Ukrainian schismatics. At the same time, he helped Constantinople register its own monastic association in the Czech Republic, again without the knowledge of blessing of the Czech-Slovak Holy Synod.
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Read the Czech Church’s full statement:
The Orthodox Church in the Czech lands observes with concern and anxiety the efforts of state bodies, specifically the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, to manipulate and control events within our sovereign Church. This reminds us of the times of the Communist regime, which shamelessly interfered in the internal workings of churches and dictated what they should do, setting rules and laws to achieve its goals, including personnel matters.
Are we returning to a time when a politician or official will grant priests state approval to perform spiritual activities, which will be conditioned upon agreeing with state ideology?
The resolution of the Senate committee in question states at its beginning that:
“The Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands is a Church independent of the aforementioned Russian Orthodox Church, has the second-highest number of believers in the Czech Republic, and their number has significantly increased in recent years with believers coming from Ukraine, attacked by Russia...” and that “this Church has a deep tradition connected with the Czech nation, advocated for an independent state and its representatives demonstrated extraordinary heroism in hiding paratroopers after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.”
However, in its output, it constantly and tendentiously links our Church with the Church that is “registered in the Czech Republic as the Russian Orthodox Church, ‘REPRESENTATION of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia in the Czech Republic,” WHICH IS NOT CONNECTED TO THE CZECH ORTHODOX CHURCH IN ANY WAY!
Is this manipulative and tendentious connection aimed at damaging our Church? The whole situation, which has a longer-term context and connections, leads us to believe that this is happening as part of a targeted and planned campaign against our Church. This is happening from several state institutions—specifically, not only the Senate but also the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic.
We further object especially to the claim that “the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands has been coming under increasingly significant influence of persons connected to the power structures of the Russian Federation since 2014...”
The manipulativeness and bias of these and other statements in this resolution lead us to fear that their aim is to prepare a procedural and legislative framework to restrict and control our Church, which is fundamentally at odds with the constitution of our country and the right to freedom of religion and belief.
We ask, where are [former President] Masaryk’s ideals of our democracy, associated with discussion about the common search for a path and truth, and not a unilateral dictate of power? Why didn’t the Senate committee invite representatives of our Orthodox Church to explain or discuss? Why did a Church representative have to request a personal meeting with the chairman of this committee a few days before the meeting of this Senate committee and offer him dialogue and answers to all questions and uncertainties of this committee? To this day, this offer has not been used in any way, and the Church was not invited to the committee meeting either.
The Senate resolution in question further “expresses the conviction that freedom of religion and association should not be misused for illegitimate influence of a hostile foreign power... and state bodies must take all legal measures to evaluate this threat as accurately as possible and to eliminate it.”
As a Church, we definitely agree that freedom of religion should not be misused for any influence of power, not only any foreign but also domestic! This is exactly the initiative that both the Senate committee and, according to this resolution, the Ministry of the Interior and Culture are pursuing.
Without any facts or evidence, this resolution states that:
“The circumstances under which the diocesan assembly of this Church took place on June 27, 2024 in the Church of St. Cyril and Methodius in Resslova Street in Prague may, according to those present, raise concerns about legitimacy in relation to the election of representatives, the handling of property, and the regularity of decisions that were adopted here.”
This meeting took place properly and according to the most binding rules of the Church, namely the statutes of the Orthodox Church. This assembly had as its only agenda item the election of a new diocesan council, as the composition of the old diocesan council was already several years past its mandate and at two previous diocesan assemblies, a new diocesan council failed to be elected.
Moreover, the personnel composition of this diocesan assembly was, with minor exceptions, identical to the previous diocesan assembly. The often-spread lie, which the Senate committee probably relies on in its statement, speaks of the tendentious acceptance of foreign priests who are supposed to influence the entire election. The fact remains that in the last two years, only two employees have been hired—one of a technical nature, who did not participate in the assembly, and one clergyman. In the structures of our Church, clerical or secular, there is not a single person of Russian nationality in employment.
At a personal meeting with the chairman of this Senate committee, he expressed the idea that “if the Orthodox Church condemned the activities of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, it would be a clear signal about the Church’s attitude towards the war in Ukraine.” The senator was assured that our Church condemns any wars, bloodshed, and violence anywhere in the world, that as part of every Liturgy served in our churches, in Czech or in Church Slavonic, our clergy and faithful always pray for peace in Ukraine. The chairman was informed that we are the last ones who want to connect spiritual and ecclesiastical power with secular government and ideology with a tendency to condemn anyone. It was clearly declared to him that “the mission of the Church is to serve, pray, and not to fight, or to consecrate anyone’s war effort, which is one of the oldest St. Wenceslas traditions of our Church.”
We therefore again and emphatically object to the unprecedented accusations against our Church by politicians and ministerial officials, and their effort to manipulate our Church into “ideological obedience.” The Communist and Nazi regimes clearly showed us the need of dictatorships to control Churches and manipulate their representatives into ideological condemnations and declarations beneficial to them, as well as the necessity to defend against this malevolence.
This is also why we will not leave this unprecedented initiative go unnoticed. We will demand discussion of this unprecedented attack on our Church in the format of the Ecumenical Council [of Churches in the Czech Republic] as such attempts at power affect the power-driven efforts of politicians to misuse church and spiritual communities.
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