Polish evangelicals in the Czechoslowakia; Church of the Czech Brethern; Neo-pietist form of religion

Autor popisuje osudy polských evangelíků augsburského vyznání na Těšínském Slezsku v letech 1945-1950, kdy vedli zápas o zachování konfesní a národnostní identity vůči nárokům Českosbratské církve. Evangelíci svoji autonomii s podporou komunistické strany uhájili, ale za to zaplatili vysokou cenu v podobě uvržení do područí komunistické strany.

This article deals with the post-war fate of Polish evangelicals in the Czechoslovak part of Cieszyn Silesia (Těšín Silesia). As a result of the intertwining of religious and political questions with national issues, the Augsburg Evangelical Church was established here after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This was an institution that was wholly Polish in nature in the interwar period. In the post-war years of 1945-1950, the church had to defend its autonomy against efforts by Czech evangelicals to subsume Silesian evangelicals into the structure of the Church of the Czech Brethern. The price for maintaining their own autonomy was that that church became subordinace to the communist government and that it lost its hitherto predominantly Polish character. It also gave rise to tensions inside the church between its official leadership and missionary groups representing neo-pietist or charismatic forms of religion.