Praxis pietatis haereticorum. The inner life of Czech heretics and its outer manifestation twenty years before the Edict of Toleration and during the first decade of the existence of "Toleration Churches"
Abstract
In Bohemia and Moravia, the last great heretic trials (involving most often those who can be called "secret protestants" -- while acknowledging the ambiguity of the term) were held in the 1760s and 1770s. On October 13th, 1781, Joseph II issued the Edict of Toleration.
Though various researches have already been carried out regarding the religious groups affected by the Edict, nearly no attention has been paid to the content of their religious testimonies nor their religious practice. An analysis of the quite well-preserved written sources (a result of the change in state administration in the second half of the 18th century) allows us to reconstruct the piety of these groups, put it into context of the religious majority as well as the world Protestantism, and portray its transformation in the first decade of religious toleration.