The decreasing place of religion
Uniquely in the world, nearly half of Czechs claim to be atheists, and only one-third of them claim to be religiously committed. Among believers, Catholics are the most numerous, followed by Protestants, Orthodox and other religious affiliations. The return of religion in the wake of the revolution (the Church was considered the opponent of the communist regime) was only a passing trend: society is now more concerned with economic success than with feelings. In addition, the communist period led to a strong distrust of religion and the lifestyle of clergymen described as lavish and luxurious, echoing what Jan Hus had already denounced before he was burned at the stake. In reality, even if some Czechs claim to be "believers", they are not religious and only rarely attend mass and services. The city of Most, for example, is the Czech champion of atheism: a little more than 10% of the inhabitants claim to have a religion and only 0.5% of them go to church regularly.
Saints Cyril and Methodius
Known as the "evangelizers of the Slavs," Cyril and Methodius traveled to central Europe in the ninth century to spread the Christian faith. The Bohemian king Ratislav, who tried to adopt the lifestyle of the Frankish kings, converted and asked the pope for help in spreading the faith in his territories in Great Moravia. Cyril and Methodius left Constantinople. They learned the Slavic dialects in Macedonia and developed an alphabet that would allow them to spread the Holy Scriptures among this new population. Their work was immense and allowed them to bring a large part of the territories of the future Holy Roman Empire to the side of Christianity. In the Czech Republic, the two saints are still celebrated on July 5 and a pilgrimage is held in Moravia to symbolically commemorate their arrival in the region.
Catholics in the majority
The majority of Czechs who declared themselves to be believers were Catholics. The violence of the repression against the Hussite reformers had permanently anchored Catholicism in the practices and mores of the religious community. Nevertheless, the reformer Jan Hus has his statue in many squares and bridges, celebrating the memory of the one who denounced the lifestyle of the bishops and rose to give a more just and egalitarian vision of the religious thing, which earned him excommunication before returning to grace in the eighteenth century thanks to Joseph II, a convinced anticlerical who finally undertook the reforms desired by the reformer. The Holy See went so far as to call Joseph II to order, worried about seeing the heated debates that had led to so many conflicts in previous centuries return to the forefront. On the eve of World War I, nine out of ten Czechs were churchgoers. In 1918, the new independence did not only affect the politicians: the religious once again brought out the figure of Jan Hus to make him a national icon and to detach themselves from the Vatican. Under the Communist yoke, however, the Church did not manage to play a leading role and, after the Velvet Revolution, lost the confidence of its faithful on a massive scale.
A revolution in morals
After the Velvet Revolution, the proportions were reversed: now less than one in five Czechs say they are concerned about religious affairs. Even though many churches, monasteries and works of art have been returned to the Church, it is struggling to regain the place it had at the beginning of the 20th century. Too many lies, too many manipulations, too few positions taken by the ecclesiastical authorities when the population needed them, have led to a general disinterest in religion, which is gradually being coupled - as we have seen in recent years - with a disinterest in politics. The Czechs are still happy to celebrate Christmas and are still attached to the tradition of the nativity scene, which is one of the most religiously marked. But personal well-being is now more often found in the sphere of economic or professional success than in the inner spiritual journey.
Christmas festivities
At first glance, you would probably not think of facing the cold weather to go celebrate Christmas in the Czech Republic. And yet! It is a magical holiday, which transforms the country and its inhabitants. The Czechs are still very attached to their traditions and all that this means. The women clean the house thoroughly, everything has to be shiny for the "Ježíšek" (the Christ Child) who brings the presents. For several days, the babičky (grandmothers) bake small baked goods of different shapes, colors and tastes and some men also put their hands to work. The houses smell good, sweets, gingerbread in the shape of small animals to hang on the tree and františek (small black pyramids that, when lit, give off a pleasant if indescribable scent) mix to fill the atmosphere and remind even the most distracted that the holiday season is coming. As for the Christmas trees, the majority of Pragians still buy a real one. This is where the ordeal begins. Among the piles of trees on every corner, you have to choose the most beautiful, the straightest, the freshest and above all the cheapest. And then there is the outside: a few days before Christmas, the round basins invade the streets and squares of cities for the greatest pleasure of the little ones: it's time to buy the carp for the Christmas Eve meal. It starts with carp soup, continues with fried breaded carp with potato salad, and ends (or rather ends) with cukroví (small cakes). Carp are sold either gutted or alive. People often put them in their bathtubs to kill them just before the meal or let them swim in the cold waters of the Vltava, which is more pleasant than seeing them get a big mallet blow on the skull by the seller or the father of the family. More peaceful: ice rinks also appear in the central squares, abundantly decorated with lights, music and roasted ham stands. There is also a strong tradition of the Christmas crib, often made up of life-size wooden sculptures that are enriched year after year with new characters invading the central square of towns and villages. A fairy tale and romantic side to it, accentuated in cities with a castle or a river: Prague is the best illustration!
A folklore still alive in the provinces
As far as folklore is concerned, it is still quite lively in the countryside, in West Bohemia (around Chodov, Domažlice), Central Moravia and South Moravia. If you arrive in a small village just before the start of the great fast at the end of winter, you are likely to come across a parade of masks going from house to house, singing and asking for baskets. In Czech, this is called fašank or masopust. The people of the villages organize several celebrations during the year, inspired by old pagan and Catholic traditions. A folk orchestra with local instruments (e.g. the cymbalum in Moravia), as well as singers and dancers in traditional costumes participate in the festivities.
An Islam not necessarily welcome
Czechs are tolerant of other religions, including Islam, which has a community of about 20,000 believers. Unfortunately, the quick associations, especially those made by President Miloš Zeman, between migration, Islam and insecurity, harm the image. However, this Muslim presence is not only due to immigration. At the crossroads of empires and routes of conquest, the Czech Republic has many Muslims from the former Ottoman Empire, whose authority extended into the Caucasus or the former Yugoslavia, and who have been living in Czech cities for many years.
A disappeared Jewish community
Jews have been present in Central Europe since before the year 1000, and settled in Prague and Bohemia at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. Even before the Second World War, they had already been the object of numerous persecutions, but despite everything they had always managed to maintain their presence and their tight-knit community. In the 13th century, as part of a policy of segregation, they found themselves walled in between the Old Town Square and the Vltava River. From then on, they were granted autonomous status - autonomy limited to the ghetto, of course - and the community developed and organized itself to live completely isolated from the rest of the city. Without political rights, the Jews had created their own administration until Joseph II restored their civil and religious rights in 1783. To commemorate this act, the neighborhood was renamed Josefov in 1850, when it became a district in its own right. In the second half of the 19th century, the neighborhood was part of a radical reclamation plan: all the houses were razed and only the synagogues and the cemetery remained. A few years later, Josefov had completely changed its face, especially with Pařížská Street, the axis cutting it in two and connecting Old Town Square to the Vltava River, displaying a superb architectural continuity in the Secession style - the Czech name for Art Nouveau. Until World War II, Prague's Jewish population continued to thrive and grow, and Josefov had nearly 20,000 inhabitants in the 1930s. During World War II, most of Prague's Jewish buildings outside Josefov were razed, with the exception of the Jubilee Synagogue in Nové Město. The Third Reich effectively wanted to turn Josefov into a kind of museum and, while exterminating the population, stored in the empty buildings a quantity of objects and archives related to Judaism from the looting of all of Europe. Today, they constitute the very diverse collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague. The other Jewish populations of Pilsen or Brno were also deported and the sumptuous villas they occupied, many of whom had made their fortune in textiles or industry, were confiscated by the Nazis and then by the Communists and never returned to their owners, such as the sumptuous Tugenhadt or Stiassni villas, or the apartments designed by Adolf Loos in Pilsen.
