www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Evan Lysacek

The Czech Republic is close to 5% Orthodox. Some are people with a bit of Eastern Slovak/Rusnjak ancestory whose Orthodox/Greek Catholic ancestors came west during the days of Austrian Empire to work in the Czech lands, married Czechs and assimilated in every way except religion; some are decendants of Czechs who in 19th century migrated east to Russian Empire (today Volhenia, Ukraine) converted to Orthodoxy and who were in mass (nearly 300,000) driven from the USSR by Stalin at the end of WWII back to the land of their fathers. Many are Czech converts from western Christianity (Such as the Martyr St. Gorazd) or usually from atheism, and of course, today many are immigrants from Ukraina and Belorusko. Of course, it's possible that Lysacek converted himself in the states as an adult but he may also be decended from one of the above (not Ukrainian worker immigrants, of course). My priest in Czech republic is the grandson of Czechs who were kicked out of Volhenia Ukraine by Stalin and my bishop converted to Orthodoxy as a young man.

That was my guess, just trying to confirm the same.

I agree, it is intriguing.....it'd be nice if the media focused as much on his faith as on who he is or isn't dating! :)

I should also mention that most of the immigrants into the Czech lands from Karpatho-Hungary in the days of the Empire would have been Greek Catholic. With the fall of Austria-Hungary and the formation of Czechoslovakia religious restrictions were lifted and many switched to the Orthodox Church. One post said Lysaček's family came over in 1925 that would have been right about the time of this movement away from the Roman Catholic Church and towards Protestant and Orthodox Churches in Czechoslovakia. It is possible his family started out as Eastern Catholics. This is just speculation but very interesting to me nonetheless.

Why did many Czechs move away from Catholicism and toward Orthodoxy? What would be the impetus behind this? I'm sure we don't have any figures, but I wonder how common this was - and why?

Alexis

I didn't mean to give the impression that there was a mass movement of Czechs to the Orthodox Church during those days but there was a general movement away from the Catholic Church. Those who moved away from the established Catholic religion and were still religiously inclined became either Protestant or Orthodox (with many Greek Catholics in Czechoslovakia at that time becoming Orthodox), while those who were Catholic in name only simply fell away and their decendents today are among the 60% of Czechs who list themselves as Atheist. To explain the reason for this in full would be far beyond a simple post but basically the Czech view of history goes like this: from the time of the fall of the Moravian Empire and the destruction of the mission of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, religion (Roman Catholic) has been used by the Germans (Holy Roman Empire and later Austrian-Hungarian) who ruled over us to keep our rebellious Slavic nation "in line". At times in the history of the nation the Czechs have tried to break free from this rule but our hopes were crushed once and for all at the battle of Bila Hora in 1648 when the Austrians (German and Catholic) conquered us, drove out our noblemen, and with the Jesuits by force recatholisied the nation. For the next 300 or so years the only Christian Church allowed was the Catholic Church and the only people to hold any position of authority were Germanic, with the Slavic Czech people being more or less serfs in their own Austrian and Catholic controlled country. With the fall of the Austrian Empire in 1918 and the establishment of the first Czechoslovak Republic, a fairly strong anti-Catholic movement arose. Church property was seized, priests were at times attacked, and hundreds of thousands of Czechs left the Church. Many became Hussite, Czech brethren, and some Orthodox. Some Greek Catholics of Czechoslovakia, many of whom felt closer to the Orthodox Church than to the Catholic, switched to the former at that time. Unfortunatly, many who at first became Orthodox seemed to have done so more for reasons of anti-Catholisism and anti-Austianism rather than for serious reasons of faith. These eventually fell away all together and, as I said earlier, today we are a nation who see religion to a large extent an historical "big brother". No offense to anyone, I'm just trying to explain the complex mentality which has lead this nation to be the most atheistic one in the world today. Not that any of the above has anything to the with Lysacek and the original post but is just a long winded explination:)

It's a guess, but there are no Orthodox parishes in Napierville, IL (his hometown).

There are, however, about a dozen and a half in a 20 mile radius, of which the majority are Greek. The next largest group are OCA parishes, with a couple of Serbian and one Bulgarian parish. On that basis, one suspects that his grandparents might have considered the Greek Orthodox to be the ones with whom they'd be most comfortable worshipping, particularly if the OCA parishes are or were Russified.

Many years,

Neil

Cyril,

Thank you for the fascinating and somewhat tragic history lesson. Very interesting.

Alexis

Alexis,
You're Welcome. Again,I hope I don't offend anyone but this seems to be the typical historical attitude towards organised religion in these parts. Otherwise people here generally hunger for something greater than themselves they just don't know what that greater "something" is. As Kryštof, Metropolitan of Prague stated some time ago, "Czechs are not a people without faith, they are a people without a church; they simply haven't found yet the right church." Maybe in America you have it better in that your churches are not associated with anyone's state. Sometimes that association is hard for people to overlook.
Wishing you a holy fast,
Cyril

I hope this part of his "witness" (mentioned in Wiki) is not true:

He is a major supporter of "National Coming Out Day" for gays and Lesbians in his community of West Hollywood...