ZDENĚK R. NEŠPOR & JIŘÍ VEČERNÍK
SOCIOLOGICKÝ ÚSTAV AV ČR
INSTITUTE OF SOCIOLOGY CAS
CHURCH IS SUSTAINED BY THE IDEALS FROM WHICH IT WAS BORN: SOCIOLOGICAL
EFFORTS IN THE CZECHOSLOVAK (HUSSITE) CHURCH
Abstract: The Czechoslovak (Hussite) Church was established in the 1920 as a result of unsatisfied
ideological and canonic demands of a part of the Roman Catholic clergy, and national and religiously
liberal moods of the public. The church was therefore occasionally accused of populism, and the
sociological interests of church leaders should be understanding in this respect. The authors studied
the sociological efforts of church members and relevant publications, and although they state that
religious statistics and sociology developed in the church in its first decades, its sources were different
and the application rather exceptional. The efforts started in (attempts at) sociology of clergy, and
the latter important authors František M. Hník and Vladimír Srb met the academic standards of the
discipline in their 1930s and 1940s works. In later years, however, religious sociology in the church
disappeared, partly due to external reasons (unavailability of sources), partly due to the ideological
reorientation of the church itself.
Keywords: sociology of religion; religious sociology; Czechoslovak (Hussite) Church; Czechoslovakia
– religion; church membership
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol. 92, 2021, No. 3, Number of Article 3, p. 268 – 284.
DOI: 10.14712/12117617.92.3.3