Historica Olomucensia

Restoration of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War

The article tries to depict internal conditions in the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia after 1945. The church was banned by the Protectorate administration after the assassination of R. Heydrich in 1942 because parachutists who did this act and hid in the crypt of the orthodox church of St. Cyril and Method were found there. The head of the church, bishop Gorazd was executed. Therefore after the liberation it was necessary to restore all church communities and administration. Such a task was too demanding for the weakened church and it leant upon the state authority and searched protection with the Russian Orthodox Church. These trends resulted in the change of jurisdiction and the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia moved from Serbian to Russian Orthodox Church's jurisdiction. Eparchies in Czechoslovakia came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarch and its leading figure the archbishop Jelevferij (Voroncov). Czech church elites wished to reach autocephaly which was supported by the state authority. This process was being prepared by the Moscow archbishop and granted to the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1951. The main efforts aimed to establish four eparchies: in Prague, Olomouc-Brno, Prešov and Michalovce.