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To: vladimir998; Wife of D; AnalogReigns
More on Wife of D and AnalogReigns statements regarding the Orthodox link to the Moravians.

http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/misc/smith_czechoslovaks/

Conversion to Christianity

The Czechs became Christian long after the British, and even after the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain, but their Christianity came to them so romantically that the tale of it reads like some long-forgotten fiction of old folk-lore. But that the story is true, the witness of an ancient language testifies; for the Old Slavonic used in the Eastern Orthodox Churches still lives in the form that it had when it issued warm on the breath of the first Czech Christians a thousand years ago. Christianity came to the Czechs from the East, from Constantinople, and from Christian Greece. Two young men, consecrated missionaries, came out from Salonica with their learning and their zeal for Christ, and went up the Danube River past many a Slavic tribe and beyond the knowledge of man, until they found the pleasant and fertile valleys of Moravia. These were Cyril and Methodius, ambassadors of Christ to the Czechs. They brought the story of the Cross to these people in their own tongue, and Cyril wrote out the Gospel for them that they might read it for themselves. Because they had no alphabet, Cyril made one for them, and invented [3/4] quaint letters which helped out the Greek alphabet to express Slavic sounds. Today the Cyrillic alphabet is universal in Eastern Europe, and is familiar to most of us in Russian print. This conversion of the Czechs occurred in the year 860.

Greek, not Roman

German missionaries representing the Church of Rome, had, before that, tried to convert the Czechs in Bohemia, but even at that early date Czechs and Germans found themselves inexorably and permanently opposed. So in Bohemia and Moravia were established Greek rather than Roman rites and doctrines. The gift of the Roman mind is law and the duty of submission to authority, while the Greek mind offers to the world the freedom of the human soul; this is true even in the Christian Church. So the gift of the Church of Rome through German missionaries, the Czechs flung back, and turned with joy to spiritual liberty and living faith which the Eastern Church brought them.

Revolt--John Ziska

War flamed up in Bohemia, and four great German armies marched upon the Czechs at intervals of two or three years, only to be hurled back utterly defeated by the Czech armies led by Ziska, one of the most picturesque figures in all history. An old man, short and broad, with long, slender nose and a fierce red moustache, blind in one eye, over which he wore a patch, he called himself "John Ziska of the Chalice, commander in the Hope of God." The people were fighting for their religious liberty, for the free reading of the Holy Bible, for the receiving of the chalice by the lay people in the Holy Communion, so that the chalice became their standard, and they wore it embroidered on their banners and tunics. In the year 1436, antedating the Reformation in the Church of England by a century, Christendom accredited to the Czechs a national Church, independent and self-organized, with bishops, priests and deacons, possessing an inherent vitality. The people sang themselves into religious fervor, and transformed the ancient Greek Church custom of singing Easter hymns, [5/6] into singing hymns the year round. Nothing like it had been known before in the world. Little do we think as we sing hymn after hymn in church and at home, whence came this gift to Christendom. The hymn, "Christ the Lord is risen again," is one of the Czech Easter hymns. Not a Roman priest was to be found in Bohemia or Moravia, and only the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 prevented reunion with the Greek Church.

72 posted on 08/13/2009 1:14:19 PM PDT by Nikas777 (En touto nika, "In this, be victorious")
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To: Nikas777

The question to be answered is this: Does anything you post support this assertion: “This is laid the groundwork for the resentment that long simmered against the Latin church.”

Let’s look at what you highlighted, shall we?

Your first two quotes say nothing even remotely close to what you claimed. Let’s look at your last two quotes:

“The people sang themselves into religious fervor, and transformed the ancient Greek Church custom of singing Easter hymns, [5/6] into singing hymns the year round.”

Irrelevant. The fact that they sang songs - even if in a Greek style - which is debateable does not prove this: “This is laid the groundwork for the resentment that long simmered against the Latin church.”

Your quote shows nothing about simmering, or resentment or 500 years of either. You lose...again.

“Not a Roman priest was to be found in Bohemia or Moravia, and only the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 prevented reunion with the Greek Church.”

Nonsense. 1) There were Catholic priests in both Bohemia and Moravia in the 1430s. If there were none then there would have been no need for the Compacta of 1433. 2) More than the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks prevented any “reunion” between the Hussites and the Byzantines. For one thing, the Byzantines, under Turkish pressure were much more interested in reunion with THE CHURCH than with the quickly fading Hussites.

Also, your source is USELESS. It is nothing but an Anglican missions report from the early 20th century and it doesn’t even say what you claim. A highly polemical Anglican account from a hundred years ago that doesn’t even say what you said doesn’t help your case at all.

Sheesh!

You. Still. Can’t. Seem. To. Prove. This:

“This is laid the groundwork for the resentment that long simmered against the Latin church.”


76 posted on 08/13/2009 1:42:58 PM PDT by vladimir998
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