Visiting Prague

Summary: life and religious influence of Jan Hus and his innovating ideas of a fair a Christian faith.

Jan Hus was born in the Kingdom of Bohemia between 1369 and 1371. This man was a philosopher and religious reformer. By the hand of Charles IV he was the first master of the Charles University in Prague, where he teaches Theology.
Hus studied in Prague where he met and become friends. In 1393 he became Bachelor of Arts, in 1394 Bachelor of Theology, and in 1396 Master of Arts. He becomes a priest devoted to a calm life in the clerical community. In 1401 he is made dean of the philosophical faculty, and in the next year be turns into the rector. The same year he becomes a priest of the Bethlehem Church in Prague.
In the visit of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia come from England in 1382 bringing with them the philosopher John Wycliffe with whom Huss as contact. Therefore he is highly influenced by the ecclesiastical reforms that were awakened only by the acquaintance with Wycliffe’s theological writings.
The king of Bohemia at the time was Wenceslaus IV (1378-1419) didn’t take the side of Pope Gregory XII resulting in a decadence of the power of Bohemia religiously. Alexander V was considered an anti-pop by the Roman Catholic Church for supporting the ideals of the reform. Therefore Huss, his followers and the king stranded for Alexander V. After the death of Archbishop Zbynek Zajic in 1411 the way was opened for the disputes between Antipope John XXIII and King Ladislaus of Naples because of the indulgences. The indulgences were a way to forgive people’s sins, to regain their way to haven, after their death on earth, people had to pay with punishments or with their richness. This situation was a corruptly way to get richness whish the Hus was against. There fore a dispute of this, which would be a long, crusade took place in the University where Hus placed a treatise against the indulgences. Some of Hus followers burned Papal bulls and Hus was considered a fraud and his cause had no legitimacy.
The Roman church tried to dissuade Hus from his purpose although in vain. Therefore Rome ordered the arrestment and the ban of Hus. His church was destroyed and he had to be delivered to the Roman church. When Hus was informed about the plane said that the pope has no authority for such orders, that Jesus Christ was the supreme master everyone should obey. Wenceslaus feared further consequences and expelled Huss form Bohemia.
In 1412 both sides tried to make peace between them but Hus asked for freedom for the Bohemian Church regarding ecclesiastical affairs. The pope and the cardinals didn’t want to abdicate their power and the reconciliation was impossible.
Three years later the Council of Constance decided to protect Hus after his will to make an end of all dissensions, and followed the request of Sigismund to go to Constance, but that didn’t happen. Hus was arrested, given in by Sigismund and had to face a trial where he was considered heretical. In the trial he was not allowed to have a defense. In the last session of the trial he was guilty for thirty-nine crimes. He was asked to admit the following crimes: that he had erred in the theses which he had hitherto maintained; that he renounced them for the future; that he recanted them; and that he declared the opposite of these sentences. Although he said he could not act against his conscience.
In the next day, in the presence of the assembly of the Council in the Cathedral Hus was sentenced to be burned alive. Right before the Church burn him they offered his to recant but Hus never did, instead he asked god to forgive his enemies. A paper hat was placed in Huss head with the word Haeresiarcha (leader of a heretical movement). At the moment of his death it is said that Hus made a prophecy saying that in one hundred years another man would come fighting for the reform. One hundred and two years later his Martin Luther left his ninety-five theses in the Wittenberg church.

Trackback URI |