Tuesday, October 07, 2025

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 2)

Some of the Hussites held to "an outright denial of any notion of Christ's presence in the eucharist...In time, Tabor arrived at a eucharistic position very comparable to the symbolic teaching." (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 59-60) Craig Atwood compares the Taborite view to Ulrich Zwingli's (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 252). Wagner summarizes:

"Despite recondite issues, four separate Hussite eucharistic meanings emerge and typologically conform to definitions that frequently appear in the history of Christian dogma: the transubstantialist party represented by Pribram and the conservative Praguers, the consubstantialist moderates led by Master Jakoubek, the sacramentalist or figurative position represented by Bishop Mikulas and the main body of Taborites, and the symbolic eucharistic view argued by Huska and the Pikart faction at Tabor." (Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 100)

The fact that they held to such a variety of eucharistic views means that they also interpreted the relevant Biblical passages in a variety of ways. Wagner refers to how a couple of the Hussite advocates of the symbolic view argued for their position "based on an exposition of John 6" (105), for example.

Regarding the sacraments, "Like the Taborites, Chelcicky accepted as valid only those sacraments which he regarded to be instituted by Christ himself. Accordingly, he recognized only three of the seven sacraments of the Catholic church: baptism, eucharist, and penance. He did concede that those rites not specifically ordained by Christ but commonly observed out of popular habit need not be abolished if they are stripped of the superstitious ceremonies that worked to the lucrative benefit of undeserving clergy who collected fees for their ministrations." (114)

Some of the Hussites briefly rejected infant baptism:

As time passed, the Unity had to decide what to do with children born into the community. Initially the Brethren did not baptize the children of members, but in 1468 they wrote to Rokycana that "children of believing Christians should be baptized in the hope of election to blessedness in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." It appears, however, that the issue of infant baptism was not settled until the Brethren engaged in a formal theological debate with Prague theologians in 1478; they were persuaded then that infant baptism was indeed a practice of the apostolic church. Thus the "anabaptist" phase of the Unity's life lasted less than twenty years, but they retained many features of a "believer's church" after adopting infant baptism. This is a rare example of a sectarian movement adopting the practice of infant baptism without compulsion, and it demonstrates the willingness of the Brethren to change their practice when persuaded by strong arguments. (Craig Atwood, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 165)

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