Jan Hus - Career

Career

Hus took an active role in the movement for reform in the church by attacking the morals of clergy, episcopate, and papacy from his pulpit. Archbishop Zbyněk Zajíc was lenient with Hus and appointed him as preacher to the biennial synod. On 24 June 1405, Pope Innocent VII, however, directed the archbishop to counter the heretical teachings of Wycliffe, especially the doctrine of impanation in the Eucharist. The archbishop complied by issuing a synodal decree against Wycliffe as well as any further attacks on the clergy.

In 1406, a document was brought by two Bohemian students to Prague bearing the seal of the University of Oxford and eulogizing Wycliffe. Hus proudly read the document from his pulpit. Zbyněk received a letter from Pope Gregory XII, in 1408, stating that the church in Rome had been informed of Wycliffe's heretical words and King Wenceslaus's sympathies for non-conformists. This prompted the king and the university to clear themselves of heretical suspicion. All writings of Wycliffe were ordered surrendered to the archdiocesan chancery for correction and Hus obeyed declaring that he condemned the errors in these writings.