Abstract
Freedom is a crucial concept in the teaching of the European Reformation and it was equally important a hundred years earlier in the struggles of the Czech Reformation. The Word of God was rerceived as the source of human freedom since the time of Jan Hus and this idea was developed both in the official Utraquist church and in the persecuted and illegal Unity of Brethren.
The Hussites efended the freedom of preaching in their four program articles in Basel. Later, under the pressure of the Catholic enemies they frequently joined the Brethren in the struggle for toleration and the freedom of conscience, freedom of belief and religion.
In its time this concept was doomed to fail but it helped pave way for the modern concepts of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.