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New legal situation of believers and churches in Czechoslovakia in 1948-1950

Publication at Faculty of Law |
2019

Abstract

Changes in the position of believers and churches after the coup of February 1948: interventions of the National Front action committees, restrictions on the Catholic press, new land reform and property-related interventions, vague constitutional provisions of the Constitution of 9 May 1948, abuse of reciprocal criminal law and new interventions of the so-called legal biennial. Criminal and extra-legal interventions against active believers.

Assault of Eagle organizations. Attempts by the Communist Party and the Government to seem to dialogue with the Catholic Church.

The end of the apparent dialogue after the detection of a wiretapping device in Starý Smokovec. Foundation of non-canonical so-called Catholic Action.

Interventions against reading the pastoral letter of the bishops. The rapid preparation of the new Laws on the Church of October 1949 and the strangeness surrounding their adoption.

The alienation of church registries, the swift entry into force of the Family Law Act and the introduction of a mandatory civil marriage. The disparate relationship of the October 1949 legislation and the major anti-Church interventions of 1950: the unlawful liquidation of male religious orders and the Greek-Catholic Church in April 1950, the partial liquidation and reorganization of theology studies in the coming months; Unlawful deprivation of liberty of church leaders and their illegal internment.

Causing material and human damage to churches by unlawful and unlawful disability of their faithful