The Orthodox Church of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

The Orthodox Church of the Czech Republic and Slovakia came into being towards the end of the 19th century, when individual Czechs and Slovaks who were enthusiastic about the idea of “Pan-Slavism” converted to Orthodoxy. The first Orthodox parish was founded in Prague in 1874. This and other Orthodox communities in the Czech spa towns were initially looked after by Orthodox priests from Russia, who soon accepted Czech converts into their communities alongside the Russian spa guests. In 1904, a larger group of Czech Old Catholics joined the Orthodox Church. When Czechoslovakia was established as an independent state after the end of the First World War in 1918, another Orthodox Church was formed, consisting mainly of converted Catholics. While one group placed itself under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the second was under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Patriarchate.

After the end of the Second World War, the two branches united to form a unified church structure, which initially placed itself under the Moscow Patriarchate. The dissolution of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia, which was decreed by the state in 1950, led to a significant increase in the number of believers due to the conversion of numerous Greek Catholic Christians to Orthodoxy. On this basis, the Patriarchate of Moscow granted the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia the status of autocephaly in December 1951. The Patriarchate of Constantinople did not recognize this unilateral step by Moscow for a long time and only confirmed the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in September 1998. 

After the collapse of the communist regime and the division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states, the structure of the Orthodox Church was adapted to the new circumstances in 1993 by forming two church provinces. Young theologians are trained at the Orthodox Faculty of Theology at the University of Prešov, which was founded in January 1997. Following the resignation of Metropolitan Kryštof (2006-13), disputes arose among the bishops over the succession to the office of first hierarch, which were only resolved in January 2016 in favor of Metropolitan Rastislav of Prešov.