Old Catholic Church; the Orthodox movement is seeking connection with the Churches of Serbia and Constantinople, while we also have Orthodox neighbours in Roumania and Russia. Various Protestant Churches are in touch with their Churches in Western Europe. Altogether the ecclesiastical movement is acquiring a significance of an international, and therefore also of a political character.
The Jews are also exhibiting a considerable religious movement; in Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia we have the Orthodox or Eastern tendency side by side with the Western or liberal variety. Zionism and the Jewish national movement are also very important in their bearings upon the Jewish question.
Diversity in ecclesiastical denominations urges towards religious tolerance, just as diversity of nationality leads to national tolerance.
The principle of tolerance is also of Reformation origin. Not that the Reformation in its very beginnings achieved the liberty which it demanded from the Church; it was not until a later development, notably among the Independents in England, that liberty of conscience and tolerance became established. In the mediæval Church by the authority of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas the heretic met with death; I need not mention the case of Servet to make it clear that in the modern Churches mediæval barbarity was not entirely effaced. The development of the spirit of toleration was very gradual; we must remember that Locke, that great advocate of toleration, was unable to tolerate Atheists. It was not until the French revolution that the rights of man, and with them, complete freedom of conscience were codified, but this was achieved only as regards religion, and not yet in the sphere of politics.
In Austria there was no liberty of conscience; in our democratic Republic genuine liberty of conscience, the toleration and recognition of what is good and what is better must be not only codified but also practised in all the spheres of public life. That is a national demand, a demand made by our historical development. Palacky’s philosophy of our history estimates the Czech Brotherhood as its highest attainment: pure Christianity, that is, the doctrine of Jesus and His admonition to love, is the bequest of the “father of our nation” and of our history,—democracy is the political form of humanitarianism. By toleration we shall make our way from Hapsburg theocracy to democracy.
Jesus, not Cæsar, I repeat,—this is the meaning of our history and democracy.
