The Struggle for Souls in the Gray Zone - Evangelization Adopted by Pentecostal Groups in the Těšín Region during the Period of Normalization

Abstract

The Pentecostal movement in the Těšín region begins in 1910 when the Union of Resolved Pentecostal Christians separated from the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession. After its dissolution by the communist regime in 1951, believers, who could only meet within permitted churches, strove for state approval from 1963 until the church's registration in January 1989, while acting as a semi-official church.

Based on archival and oral-history research, the author studies the acquired evangelization forms during normalization, Pentecostal evangelistic emphases, state interventions in their evangelistic efforts and strategies of self-assertion towards the state.