Czechs turn ‘symbol of division’ into ground for Catholic-Protestant unity

The May 8 gatherings, organized by lay groups around a reconciliation cross, mark a shift in how the Czech Republic, one of Europe’s most secular countries, lives with a historic religious wound.

Czech and Slovak Christians gathered for ecumenical prayers on Friday at the site of the 1620 Battle of White Mountain and in some 10 cities across the Czech Republic, marking a historic Catholic-Protestant wound as an occasion for reconciliation.

The Habsburg victory at Bílá Hora — Czech for “White Mountain,” on a hill outside Prague — ended a Bohemian Protestant revolt and led to the forcible re-Catholicization of the Czech lands. The event is sometimes referred to as the Czech “national trauma” and helped shape anti-Catholic sentiment that has marked Czech religious identity for centuries.

The May 8 events took place on the Bílá Hora hilltop, which is now part of Prague, and on city squares and in churches across the country. At the main gathering, the Slovak Christian band Timothy performed, joined by other musicians and pilgrims.

The lay group Smíření Bílá hora — Czech for “Reconciliation White Mountain” — has organized the annual events since 2020. On the 400th anniversary of the battle that November, Archbishop Jan Graubner of Prague and the head of the Czech Ecumenical Council of Churches, Daniel Ženatý, presided at an ecumenical prayer service on the hill. Chief Rabbi Karol Sidon represented the Jewish community, and the Czech Bishops’ Conference co-organized the event.

A reconciliation cross was installed at the site as “a permanent reminder” and “a place for symbolic events,” according to Father Stanislav Přibyl — then-general secretary of the Czech Bishops’ Conference and now archbishop of Prague — speaking to the Czech weekly Katolický týdeník. He called the cross “part of the Czech spiritual tradition.”

When commemorative gatherings resumed in May 2021 as COVID-19 restrictions eased, the then-apostolic nuncio to the Czech Republic, Archbishop Charles Daniel Balvo, sent a letter to the lay organizers conveying that Pope Francis appreciated their prayers, “particularly when they are linked to a genuine wish to reconcile” people and “to heal the past wounds, accompanied by concrete gestures of forgiveness and meeting.”

Spreading reconciliation across the regions

Diocesan support has gradually widened.

The Archdiocese of Olomouc and the Diocese of Ostrava-Opava told EWTN News that while they do not organize anything specifically tied to Bílá Hora, they support all initiatives aimed at reconciliation. The Archdiocese of Prague is “supportive, including bishops, as well as the clergy and consecrated people, so not only laypersons,” its press office told EWTN News. Former archbishops of Prague Cardinal Miloslav Vlk and Cardinal Dominik Duka met with Protestants at Bílá Hora in 2000 and 2010, respectively, the archdiocese recalled.

“We support our local service rather symbolically — through promotion,” the press office of the Diocese of Ostrava-Opava said. In the city of Ostrava, the May 8 gathering is led by an ecumenical community on the conviction that “reconciliation begins in families and small communities and can gradually spread further through churches and into society.”

The eastern Czech diocese held a separate Lenten reconciliation event in the Opava co-cathedral marking its 30th anniversary, asking forgiveness for the sins “which hurt brothers and sisters from other Christian churches,” its press office said.

The Czech Bishops’ Conference confirmed to EWTN News that it is no longer involved in organizing or coordinating the Bílá Hora events directly.

A wound rooted in the Thirty Years’ War

The Battle of White Mountain took place on Nov. 8, 1620, near Prague during the early phase of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), a religious-political conflict that ravaged Europe.

The war was ended by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which reaffirmed and extended the principle of “cuius regio, eius religio” — “whose realm, his religion” — first established at the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, under which the ruler of a given territory determined the religion of its subjects.

The Catholic Church remains the largest religious community in the Czech Republic, but the country is one of the most secular in Europe. According to the 2021 census, about 22% of Czechs identified as religious, and Catholics made up roughly 9% of the population, down from nearly 40% in 1991. About 30% of respondents declined to answer the religion question.