The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/From the Protestant camp

FROM THE PROTESTANT CAMP

 

Numerically Protestants are not very strong among the Czech people. But both here and in the old country they have come out strongly in favor of independence, as one might expect from their historical traditions.

In this country the Evangelical Union, an organization consisting of Presbyterian and Reformed churches and ministers using the Bohemian language, passed the following resolution at its thirteenth annual convention at Saratoga, Iowa, September 11th: “We gladly recognize the sincere efforts of the Bohemian National Alliance for the liberation of our native land and express to the officers of the Alliance our full confidence and appreciation. We call upon our brethren in all the churches to stand faithfully by this movement and give it even larger support than has been done heretofore. Upon general request we establish hereby the Liberty Guard of the American Czecho-Slovak Protestants for the purpose of gaining the sympathies of our American and English brothers in faith for the freedom and independence of the Czechoslovak nation.—Rev. Joseph Břeň, D. D., Rev. Václav Vaněk, D. D., M. Votava.”

From Moravia comes the report that at the pastoral conference of ministers of the Reformed Church, held in Brno in June, the appeal of the Bohemian authors to the deputies urging them to be firm was enthusiastically endorsed. At the same time the desire was expressed for the dissolution of the existing Reformed Church of Austria and the constituting of a national Czechoslovak evangelical church. This movement for church independence is a corollary to the movement for political independence.