History
The Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia presents both an ancient history as well as a very modern history. The present day church occupies the land of Moravia, where the brothers Ss. Cyril and Methodius began their mission to the Slavs, introducing the liturgical and canonical order of the Orthodox Church, translated into the Church Slavonic language. In doing this they developed the first Slavic alphabet. This mission was destroyed after Methodius died in 885, as Pope Stephen V of Rome forced all disciples of the brothers to leave the countryside which is now the Czech Republic. The Orthodox order survived in present day Slovakia due to its nearness and influence to Kievan Rus' until the union with Rome was instituted by the Viennese Court.
After the legal restraints to Orthodoxy were removed with the end of World War I, many people left the Roman Catholic Church. Many looked to the Serbian Orthodox Church as parts of the Serbian church had been within the pre-war union. Among those seeking the Orthodox church was a Roman Catholic priest, Matěj Pavlík, who had been interested in Orthodox Christianity for years. The Church of Serbia thus consented to consecrate Matěj Pavlík as a bishop of the Orthodox Church with the name Gorazd.
On September 25, 1921, Archimandrite Gorazd was consecrated Bishop of Moravia and Silesia at the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by Patriarch Dimitri of Serbia. Bp. Gorazd (Pavlik) is considered to be in the succession from Archbishop Methodius of Moravia and bears the name of one of St. Methodius's disciples and successor, Bp. Gorazd.
As the Orthodox leader in the new nation of Czechoslovakia, Bp. Gorazd laid the foundations of the Orthodox Church throughout Bohemia, Moravia, and into Slovakia. In Bohemia, he oversaw the building of eleven churches and two chapels. He also published the essential books for the conduct of church services that were translated in the Czech language. He provided aid to those in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' which then were part of Czechoslovakia, and who wanted to return to their ancestral Orthodox faith from the Unia. Thus, in the interbellum period, Bp. Gorazd built the small Czech church that during World War II would show how firmly it was connected to the Czech nation.
In 1938 the Third Reich succeeded in annexing the Sudetenland from Czechoslavakia during the Munich Conference. The following year it annexed the remainder of the Czech lands into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and installed a pro-Nazi regime in Slovakia. By 1942 Reinhard Heydrich, architect of the Final Solution, had become governor of the Protectorate. After the May 27, 1942, assassination attack on Heydrich's car in Prague, Czech partisans took refuge in the crypt of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral before continuing their escape. They were aided by senior church laymen, who kept Bp. Gorazd informed. However, their presence was discovered by the Nazis, and on June 18 the Nazis attacked their hiding place in the cathedral, forcing them to commit suicide. The Orthodox priests, laymen, and Bp. Gorazd were arrested and killed by firing squads on September 4, 1942.
In reprisal the Nazis forbade the church to operate in Bohemia and Moravia. Churches and chapels were closed, and a rounding up of Czechs was conducted, including the whole village of Lidice, whose inhabitants were either killed or sent to forced labor camps. For the Orthodox the whole church fell under the Nazi persecution and was decimated. A total of 256 Orthodox priests and laymen were executed, and church life came to a stop.
After World War II the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia began its recovery without its bishop. On December 9, 1951, the Patriarch of Moscow granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia, though this action was not recognized by Constantinople, which regarded the Czechoslovakian church as being autonomous under its authority. The Patriarch of Constantinople later granted a tomos of autocephaly on August 27, 1998.
The martyrdom of Bp. Gorazd was recognized by the Serbian Orthodox Church on May 4, 1961, which glorified Gorazd as a New Martyr. Subsequently, on August 24, 1987, he was glorified at the Cathedral of St. Gorazd in Olomouc, Moravia.
Read more about this topic: Czech And Slovak Orthodox Church
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