The Bohemian religious leader often recognized as the forerunner of the Reformation, but was condemned as a heretic by Council of Constance.
Born into a properous peasant family, little though is known of Hus' early life. Educated at the University of Prague, he was ordained a priest in 1400, and later appointed the rector of the university as well as rector of the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. The preaching responsibilities of these offices led him into the serious study of the Bible and a deep conviction of the need for reform in the church. Along the way he developed a deep respect for the teachings of John Wycliffe whose works were beginning about that time disseminating into Bohemia. Like Wycliffe, Hus was aware of the corruption in the church and wrote a number of works highly critical of many of the medieval church practices, for which he was excommunicated in 1412.
Hus was summoned to appear before the Council of Constance to account for his reformist preaching, with Emperor Sigismund promising him safe conduct for the journey forth and back. At the council, however, Hus was denied the opportunity to explain or defend his views but was only commanded to abjure the (false) charges brought against him. Hus refused. Hus' teaching, as well as that of John Wycliffe (whose writings had influenced Hus) were then condemned as heretical. The Emperor reneged on his promise of protection and Hus was burned at the stake outside the city on 6 July 1415. Though Wycliffe had been dead for three decades, the Council, in an act of vindictive display of authority, ordered his corpse exhumed, burnt and the ashes cast into the river. The Emperor then set his army to root out Hus' followers, and the term Hussite became afterwards a byword for 'rebels' and 'priest-hater.' But news of Hus' unfair treatment and martyrdom united the people of Prague against the attacks. Though they were badly mauled, Hussite convictions lived on in both Bohemia and Moravia and eventually led to the establishment of the Moravian Church under the leadership of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf.
Media Resources:
W. Robert Godfrey, A Survey of Church History, Part 25. Forerunners of the Reformation. 23.45 mins. Ligonier.org. This is one of 72 lectures.
Audio/Video N (Open on Phone)
Further Reading:
John Huss, De Ecclesia: The Church. Trans. by David Schaff, 1915. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976.
Rudolf Rican, The History of the Unity of Brethren: A Protestant Hussite Church in Bohemia and Moravia. Bethlehem, PA: Moravian Church in America, 1992.
Allen Schattschneider, Through Five Hundred Years: A Popular History of the Moravian Church. Bethlehem, PA: Moravian Church in America, 1990.
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