Action K

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Aktion K (Czech Akce K , Slovak Akcia K ), derived from Aktion Kloster (Czech Akce kláštery , Slovak Akcia kláštory ) was an action by the KPTsch rulers in Czechoslovakia against the Roman Catholic Church , especially its order and in 1950 Monasteries.

prehistory

Already after the February revolution in 1948, the first repression of the communists under their first state president, Klement Gottwald, was felt as an opponent of the Roman Catholic Church, especially by the Catholic teachers and their students. In the territory of Czechoslovakia , around 60–70% officially declared themselves to be Catholic . These actions were not as noticeable for the members of the Protestants and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church , which comprised around 900,000 people, as they more collaborated with the communists.

Gottwald's declaration of war was:

“Lot of Rome and towards a national church. We have to neutralize the church and get it into our hands so that it serves the regime ”

- on June 9, 1948 before the Central Committee of the KPČ

The communists hoped to get the clergy on their side without violence. For this purpose, lay people loyal to the party founded the Catholic Action , which was supposed to dismantle the church organization from within. Josef Beran , who was appointed Archbishop of Prague in 1946, was a bitter opponent . With a pastoral letter he refused to submit the church to the communist regime. That is why he was arrested in 1949.

The Vatican reacted with an excommunication of the members of the Catholic Action as well as the Catholics among the party members.

Action K 1950

The first part of the Kloster Aktion , which was directed against the male monasteries, took place on the night of April 13-14, 1950. Due to the brutality, this night is also known as the Czechoslovak Bartholomew Night . Under the supervision of the State Security Authority ( Státní bezpečnost ), the Czechoslovak People's Army and the People's Militia struck a second time on the night of April 27-28. According to the Czech Bishops' Conference , a total of 247 male monasteries were liquidated at that time. The approximately 2500 monks who lived in these monasteries were all arrested.

In a third stage, 670 women's monasteries with around 11,900 nuns were dissolved and the monasteries expropriated in autumn of the same year . The nuns who were not employed in the social sector were interned from 1950 in the east Bohemian Bílá Voda in the Reichensteiner Mountains .

Follow the action

As a result of the persecution of the men's orders , these were largely decimated to such an extent that the orders were no longer able to recover on their own after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The decimation of the women's orders , whose nuns were initially allowed to work in large numbers in the social sector and in the health service, caused problems in health care, so that some of them were allowed to continue working.

In the Prague spring of 1968, the orders were temporarily given more rights, but these were lost again after the crackdown.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The persecution of the churches under communism on Radio Prague from November 3, 2007, accessed on September 1, 2010.