APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7
responsible for church affairs with liberals who were in favor of restoring some of the rights lost by the church, the Dubcek leadership reinstated several bishops to their dioceses and lifted restrictions on seminaries and other church activities. In 1968 the Minister of Culture and Information, under whose province church affairs fell, went on record as saying that "religion is the private affair of every citizen," and that religious education might be patterned after the system of Sunday schools in the United States. The number of children enrolled in religious classes rose sharply, in some areas to 80%. There were fewer than 800 students enrolled in 1968 in the country's two seminaries, however.
After the fall of the Dubcek regime, church-state relations reverted to those of the 1950's, but protracted and difficult negotiations between the Vatican and the representatives of the Czechoslovak Government resumed in November 1972 and resulted in a partial compromise agreement in February 1973 on the appointment of four new bishops to fill some of the numerous vacancies in the hierarchy, a problem that had grown especially acute with the death of three bishops in 1972. With the consecration of these four new bishops—three of whom filled vacancies for Slovakia—by a representative of the Vatican, the Catholic Church has reestablished bishops in six of the 12 dioceses in Czechoslovakia. Although at least three of the four new bishops have previously participated in the activities of the regime-sponsored organization for priests—Pacem in Terris, the successor to the Catholic Clergy for Peace organization abolished by the Dubcek government in 1968—a Vatican official noted that the Pope took into consideration "valid pastoral achievements." In addition, the Vatican has made allowance for the fact that a large number of Catholic clergy had joined the Pacem in Terris movement under pressure from state authorities because to refuse to do so would have resulted in the church in Czechoslovakia being without priests. Therefore if the Czechoslovak Government has desired to improve its international image and, like Poland and Hungary, establish a policy of limited cooperation with the Catholic Church, the Vatican at the same time has afforded another example of its concern over the inadequacy of its presence in Czechoslovakia, which has compelled it to come to terms with Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the interests of preserving and extending its influence.
Policy changes and official attitudes apparently extend only to Czechoslovakia's external relations with the Vatican. On the domestic front, the activities of the some 3,300 priests are still severely restricted, with many not permitted to perform their pastoral duties even though hundreds of communities in Czech and Slovak dioceses are without priests. Admission to the two Catholic seminaries was again restricted in 1973, thereby restoring the situation as it existed before 1968. Notwithstanding the February 1973 accord, the Czechoslovak Government antireligious campaign has continued unabated in the mass media. Also, according to recent reports, children of practicing Catholics may no longer be admitted to general secondary schools. Therefore, from the Vatican's standpoint, key issues remain unresolved.
Another event which may affect church-state relations in Czechoslovakia was the formal installation of Stepan Trochta, bishop of Litomerice, as a cardinal on 12 April 1973. On that occasion the Pope told the new cardinal that his elevation might contribute to the solution of church-state problems in Czechoslovakia. The second secretary of the Czechoslovak Embassy in Rome was among those who attended the ceremony.
In addition to the Catholic Church, two other important pre-Reformation churches existed in the territory of the Czechoslovak First Republic—the Greek Orthodox or Uniat, and the Orthodox. Both of these churches were ethnically based upon the Ukrainian population of Carpathian Ruthenia and eastern Slovakia. After the cession in 1945 of Carpathian Ruthenia to the Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church became insignificant, with a remnant within Czechoslovakia of only slightly over 25,000 communicants. The Uniat Church, left with a membership of nearly 200,000 and with a hierarchy subordinate to Rome (although its rite is similar to that of the Orthodox Church), was forcibly merged by the government in 1950 into the smaller Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow in order to sever the Vatican ties of the Greek Catholic Church and promote Czechoslovak-Russian relations. Most of the Greek Catholic parishes are located in eastern Slovakia. The results of a 1966 survey conducted in Slovakia seeking information on religious affinities indicate that the official pressure on the Greek Catholics to accept allegiance to the Orthodox Church was not too successful. Only 25% considered themselves as Orthodox. Another survey in 1968 showed that the overwhelming majority of the Greek Catholics who had become Orthodox in the 1950's would return to Catholicism if they had the option. During the liberalization period in 1968 the Greek Catholics began to reestablish their own parishes but it is not known whether their connection to the Orthodox Church has been permanently severed.
Protestant churches rapidly expanded their membership in the 1920's and 1930's, particularly in
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7
