1.
Tatra Mountains
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The Tatra Mountains, Tatras or Tatra, are a mountain range that form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They are the highest mountain range in the Carpathian Mountains, the Tatras should be distinguished from the Low Tatras which are located south of the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. The Tatra Mountains occupy an area of 785 square kilometres, of which about 610 square kilometres lie within Slovakia, the highest peak, called Gerlach, at 2,655 m is located north of Poprad. The highest point in Poland, Rysy, at 2,499 m is located south of Zakopane. The Tatras length, measured from the foothills of the Kobyli Wierch to the southwestern foot of Ostry Wierch Kwaczański, in a straight line is 57 km. The range is only 19 km wide, the Tatras main ridge leads from Huciańska Pass in the west to Zdziarska Pass to the east. In 1992 the Polish and Slovak parks were designated a transboundary biosphere reserve by UNESCO in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves under its Man. It is the highest mountain range within Carpathians, by the end of the First Polish Republic and the Polish border between the Kingdom of Hungary in the Tatras was not strictly defined. The Tatras became an unoccupied borderland, two years later, the First Partition of Poland allocated the lands to Austria. In 1824, Zakopane good and Fish Creek Valley with Morskie Oko purchased from the authorities of the Austrian Hungarian Emanuel Homolacs. In 1867 formed the Austria-Hungary and the Tatra Mountains have become imaginary border between the two states of the monarchy, but the border still has not been exactly determined. In 1889, Count Władysław Zamoyski purchased at auction a good Zakopane, due to numerous disputes over lands belonging in the late nineteenth century, attempts were made to the delimitation of the border. They did not bring effect in 1897, and the case went to a court that on September 13,1902 determined the exact course of the Austria-Hungary border in the disputed area. The Tatras lie in the zone of Central Europe. They are an important barrier to the movements of air masses and their mountainous topography causes one of the most diverse climates in that region. Winds The average wind speed on the summits is 6 m/s. southerly winds on the northern side westerly winds at the base of Tatra foehn winds most often occur between October and May and they are warm and dry and can cause extensive damage. On 19 November 2004, large parts of the forests in the southern Slovak part of the High Tatras were damaged by a wind storm. Three million cubic metres of trees were uprooted, two died and several villages were totally cut off
2.
Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
3.
Slovakia
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Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Slovakias territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres and is mostly mountainous. The population is over 5 million and comprises mostly ethnic Slovaks, the capital and largest city is Bratislava. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries, in the 7th century, they played a significant role in the creation of Samos Empire and in the 9th century established the Principality of Nitra. In the 10th century, the territory was integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary, which became part of the Habsburg Empire. After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a separate Slovak Republic existed in World War II as a client state of Nazi Germany. In 1945, Czechoslovakia was reëstablished under Communist rule as a Soviet satellite, in 1989 the Velvet Revolution ended authoritarian Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The country maintains a combination of economy with universal health care. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the Eurozone on 1 January 2009, Slovakia is also a member of the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the OECD, the WTO, CERN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. The Slovak economy is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and its legal tender, the Euro, is the worlds 2nd most traded currency. Although regional income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes, in 2016, Slovak citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 165 countries and territories, ranking the Slovak passport 11th in the world. Slovakia is the world’s biggest per-capita car producer with a total of 1,040,000 cars manufactured in the country in 2016 alone, the car industry represents 43 percent of Slovakia’s industrial output, and a quarter of its exports. Radiocarbon datingputs the oldest surviving archaeological artefacts from Slovakia – found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom – at 270,000 BC and these ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia. Other stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic era come from the Prévôt cave near Bojnice, the most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium, discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone, the statue was found in the 1940s in Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany. Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of the Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice, Hubina and these findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and Central Europe. The Bronze Age in the territory of modern-day Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BC
4.
Slovaks
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The Slovaks or Slovak people are a nation and West Slavic ethnic group native to Slovakia who share a common ancestry, culture, history and are native speakers of the Slovak language. Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia, there are Slovak minorities in Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Serbia and sizeable populations of immigrants and their descendants in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The name Slovak is derived from *Slověninъ, plural *Slověně, the old name of the Slavs, in the Slovak language, only the masculine noun Slověninъ, Slověn changed to Slovän, Slovan and finally to Slovák around 1400. The older form Sloven is preserved in all words in the Slovak language – the adjective Slovak is still slovenský, the feminine noun Slovak is still Slovenka. In 1029 St. Emeric, ruler of the Nitrian principality is called Henricus dux Sclavonie, in 1113 Nestor calls the territory of Slovakia - Slověnskaja zemlja. The first written mention about usage of the new form Slovak in the territory of present-day Slovakia is from Bardejov – Nicoulaus Cossibor hauptman, Nicolaus Czech et Slowak, the mentions in Czech sources are older –1375 and 1385. The change is not related to ethnogenesis of Slovaks, but exclusively to linguistic changes in the West Slavic languages, the word Slovak was also used later as a common name for all Slavs in Czech, Polish and also Slovak language in parallel with other forms. The Slovaks and Slovenes are the only current Slavic nations that have preserved the original name, for Slovenes, the adjective is still slovenski and the feminine noun Slovene is still also Slovenka, but the masculine noun has since changed to Slovenec. The Slovak name for their language is slovenčina and the Slovene name for theirs is slovenščina, the Slovak term for the Slovene language is slovinčina, and the Slovenes call Slovak slovaščina. The name is derived from proto-Slavic form slovo word, talk, thus Slovaks as well as Slovenians would mean people who speak, i. e. people who understand each other. In Hungarian Slovak is Tót, an exonym and it was originally used to refer to all Slavs including Slovenes and Croats, but eventually came to refer primarily to Slovaks. Many place names in Hungary such as Tótszentgyörgy, Tótszentmárton, tóth is a common Hungarian surname. The Slovaks have also historically been referred to as Slovyenyn, Slowyenyny, Sclavus, Sclavi, Slavus, Slavi, Winde, Wende. The final three terms are variations of the Germanic term Wends, which was used to refer to any Slavs living close to Germanic settlements. The early Slavs came to the territory of Slovakia in several waves from the 5th and 6th centuries and were organized on a tribal level, original tribal names are not known due to the lack of written sources before their integration into higher political units. In the 7th century, Slavs founded larger tribal union, Samos empire, regardless of Samos empire, the integration process continued in other territories with various intensities. The final fall of the Avar Khaganate allowed new political entities to arise, the first such political unit documented by written sources is the Principality of Nitra, one of the foundations of later common ethnic consciousness. At this stage in history it is not yet possible to assume a common identity of all Slovak ancestors in the territory of eastern Slovakia, the Principality of Nitra become a part of Great Moravia, a common state of Moravians and Slovaks
5.
Latin Church
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The Latin Church, commonly called Roman Catholic Church, sometimes Western Church, is the largest autonomous particular church sui iuris within the Catholic Church, applying Latin liturgical rites. There are 24 such sui iuris particular churches within the Catholic Church, all the other particular churches sui iuris, of which there are 23, originated farther east and are, therefore, collectively known as the Eastern Catholic Churches. Because of the migrations, members of all of these particular churches sui iuris are no longer confined to their areas of origin. A person is a member of or belongs to a particular church, a person also inherits or is of, a particular patrimony or rite. Since the rite has liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary elements, Particular churches that inherit and perpetuate a particular patrimony are identified by metonymy with that patrimony. Accordingly, rite has been defined as a division of the Christian church using a distinctive liturgy, is considered equal to the Latin rite within the Church. It thus used the rite as a technical designation of what may now be called a particular church. Church or rite is used as a single heading in the United States Library of Congress classification of works. The last known use was Pope Pius XII in Humani generis who taught that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one. Most ecclesiologists - experts in the theology of the Church itself - instead use Roman Catholic to refer exclusively to the Latin Church. The reasons for this are that each of the 24 Catholic Churches sui iuris have a modifier - Maronite, Ukrainian, Roman, etc. - and that Latin and Roman are virtually interchangeable. Further, as Adrian Fortescue noted in his article in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia, today, the most common Latin liturgical rites are the Roman Rite, the Ambrosian Rite, the Mozarabic Rite, and variations of the Roman Rite. The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches share five families of liturgical rites, the Latin liturgical rites, like the Armenian, are used only in a single sui iuris particular church. In the Eastern Churches these sacraments are usually administered immediately after baptism, celibacy, as a consequence of the duty to observe perfect continence, is obligatory for priests in the Latin Church. Rare exceptions are permitted for men who, after ministering as clergy in other churches and this contrasts with the discipline in most Eastern Catholic Churches. In the Latin Church, a man may not be admitted even to the diaconate unless he is legitimately destined to remain a deacon. Marriage after ordination is not possible, and attempting it can result in canonical penalties, Latin Mass Church of Rome Particular church General Roman Calendar Eastern Catholic Churches Catholic Encyclopedia, Latin Church
6.
Lutheranism
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Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity which identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German friar, ecclesiastical reformer and theologian. Luthers efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation in the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone and this is in contrast to the belief of the Catholic Church, defined at the Council of Trent, concerning authority coming from both the Scriptures and Tradition. In addition, Lutheranism accepts the teachings of the first seven ecumenical councils of the undivided Christian Church, unlike Calvinism, Lutherans retain many of the liturgical practices and sacramental teachings of the pre-Reformation Church, with a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, or Lords Supper. Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in Christology, the purpose of Gods Law, the grace, the concept of perseverance of the saints. Today, Lutheranism is one of the largest denominations of Protestantism, with approximately 80 million adherents, it constitutes the third most common Protestant denomination after historically Pentecostal denominations and Anglicanism. The Lutheran World Federation, the largest communion of Lutheran churches, Other Lutheran organizations include the International Lutheran Council and the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, as well as independent churches. The name Lutheran originated as a term used against Luther by German Scholastic theologian Dr. Johann Maier von Eck during the Leipzig Debate in July 1519. Eck and other Catholics followed the practice of naming a heresy after its leader. Martin Luther always disliked the term Lutheran, preferring the term Evangelical, which was derived from euangelion, the followers of John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and other theologians linked to the Reformed tradition also began to use that term. To distinguish the two groups, others began to refer to the two groups as Evangelical Lutheran and Evangelical Reformed. As time passed by, the word Evangelical was dropped, Lutherans themselves began to use the term Lutheran in the middle of the 16th century, in order to distinguish themselves from other groups such as the Philippists and Calvinists. In 1597, theologians in Wittenberg defined the title Lutheran as referring to the true church, Lutheranism has its roots in the work of Martin Luther, who sought to reform the Western Church to what he considered a more biblical foundation. Lutheranism spread through all of Scandinavia during the 16th century, as the monarch of Denmark–Norway, through Baltic-German and Swedish rule, Lutheranism also spread into Estonia and Latvia. Since 1520, regular Lutheran services have been held in Copenhagen, under the reign of Frederick I, Denmark-Norway remained officially Catholic. Although Frederick initially pledged to persecute Lutherans, he adopted a policy of protecting Lutheran preachers and reformers. During Fredericks reign, Lutheranism made significant inroads in Denmark, at an open meeting in Copenhagen attended by the king in 1536, the people shouted, We will stand by the holy Gospel, and do not want such bishops anymore. Fredericks son Christian was openly Lutheran, which prevented his election to the throne upon his fathers death, however, following his victory in the civil war that followed, in 1537 he became Christian III and advanced the Reformation in Denmark-Norway
7.
Calvinism
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Calvinism is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. The term Calvinism can be misleading, because the tradition which it denotes has always been diverse. The movement was first called Calvinism by Lutherans who opposed it, early influential Reformed theologians include Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, and John Knox. In the twentieth century, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, B. B, Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Karl Barth, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Cornelius Van Til, and Gordon Clark were influential. Contemporary Reformed theologians include J. I, sproul, Timothy J. Keller, John Piper, David Wells, and Michael Horton. Reformed churches may exercise several forms of polity, most are presbyterian or congregationalist. Calvinism is largely represented by Continental Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist traditions, the biggest Reformed association is the World Communion of Reformed Churches with more than 80 million members in 211 member denominations around the world. There are more conservative Reformed federations such as the World Reformed Fellowship, Calvinism is named after John Calvin. It was first used by a Lutheran theologian in 1552 and it was a common practice of the Catholic Church to name what they perceived to be heresy after its founder. Nevertheless, the term first came out of Lutheran circles, Calvin denounced the designation himself, They could attach us no greater insult than this word, Calvinism. It is not hard to guess where such a deadly hatred comes from that they hold against me, despite its negative connotation, this designation became increasingly popular in order to distinguish Calvinists from Lutherans and from newer Protestant branches that emerged later. Moreover, these churches claim to be—in accordance with John Calvins own words—renewed accordingly with the order of gospel. Since the Arminian controversy, the Reformed tradition—as a branch of Protestantism distinguished from Lutheranism—divided into two groups, Arminians and Calvinists. However, it is now rare to call Arminians a part of the Reformed tradition, some have also argued that Calvinism as a whole stresses the sovereignty or rule of God in all things including salvation. First-generation Reformed theologians include Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Capito, John Oecolampadius, scripture was also viewed as a unified whole, which led to a covenantal theology of the sacraments of baptism and the Lords Supper as visible signs of the covenant of grace. Another Reformed distinctive present in these theologians was their denial of the presence of Christ in the Lords supper. Each of these also understood salvation to be by grace alone. Martin Luther and his successor Philipp Melanchthon were undoubtedly significant influences on these theologians, the doctrine of justification by faith alone was a direct inheritance from Luther
8.
Ruthenians
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Ruthenians and Ruthenes are archaic English-language exonyms for a Slavic population known in medieval times as the Rus in various parts of Eastern Europe. Along with Lithuanians, Samogitians and Litvins constituted main population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from the 9th century, the state of, which was known later as Kievan Rus was known in Western Europe by a variety of names derived from Rus. From the 12th century, Rus was usually known in Western Europe by the Latinised name Ruthenia, in their broadest usage, Ruthenians or Ruthenes were used to refer to peoples now called Belarusians, Russians, members of the Rusyn minority and Ukrainians. By the end of the 18th century, the modern Ukrainian language had been codified, at the same time, however, many Rusyns did not accept the name Ukrainian or never regarded themselves as such, especially those in Carpathian Ruthenia and the Pannonian Rusyns. Contact with neighbouring languages, such as Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and German had created significant linguistic rifts between the Rusyn language and Ukrainian, by the mid-19th century, the Rusyns of Galicia and Lodomeria had codified their language. Many people identifying as Rusyns now regard themselves as a minority, the majority of them live in south-western Ukraine, eastern Slovakia, south-east Poland, north-east Hungary, and north-west Romania. The related Pannonian Rusyns live in a region of Serbia and Croatia. Ruthenians and Ruthenes are now used by Rusyns or Ukrainians. From the 12th century, the land of Rus was usually known in Western Europe by the Latinised name Ruthenia, geographically, Ruthenia is a cross-border region centred on the northern Carpathian Mountains, including western Ukraine, eastern Slovakia, and southern Poland. This area coincides, to a degree, with a region sometimes known in English as Galicia. The name Ruthenian is also used by the Pannonian Rusyn minority in Serbia and Croatia, in contrast, the Rusyns of Romania are more likely to identify as Ukrainian. One of the earliest references to Rus in a Latinised form was in the 5th century, ruteni, a misnomer that was also the name of an extinct and unrelated Celtic tribe in Ancient Gaul, was used in reference to Rus is in the Annales Augustiani of 1089. An alternative early modern Latinisation, Rucenus was, according Boris Unbegaun and it too was applied to Rusyns and Ukrainians equally. However according to research studies is to come to conclusion that even after the 16th century the word Rutheni was associated with all East Slavs. Vasili III of Russia, who ruled the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the 16th century, was known in European Latin sources as Rhuteni Imperator, according to Jacques Margeret Moscovitae called themselves in the 16th century Ruthenians. Professor David Frick from the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute has also found in Vilnius the documents from 1655, at the request of Mykhajlo Levitsky, in 1843 the term Ruthenian became the official name for the Rusyns and Ukrainians within the Austrian Empire. For example, Ivan Franko and Stepan Bandera in their passports were identified as Ruthenians, by 1900 more and more Ruthenians began to call themselves with the self-designated name Ukrainians. A number of Ukrainian members of the intelligentsia, such as Mykhailo Drahomanov and Ivan Franko, perceived the term as narrow-minded, provincial and Habsburg
9.
Diocese
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The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
10.
Religion in the Czech Republic
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Historically, the Czech people have been characterised as tolerant and even indifferent towards religion. After the Bohemian Reformation, most Czechs became followers of Jan Hus, Petr Chelcicky, after the Habsburgs regained control of Bohemia, Czech people were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism. All kinds of Protestant communities including the branches of Hussites, Lutherans and Reformed were either expelled, killed. The Catholic Church lost the bulk of its adherents during the Communist era and continues to lose in the modern,44.7 of the population did not answer the question about religion. From 1991 to 2001 and further to 2011 the populations proportion of members of the Catholic Church decreased from 39. 0% to 26. 8%, protestantism declined from 4% to 1%. A2012 Eurobarometer poll about religiosity in the European Union found that the largest religious affiliation in the Czech Republic was Non believer/Agnostic, Christianity accounted for 34% of Czech citizens. Catholics were the largest Christian group in the Czech Republic, making up 29% of Czech citizens, while Protestants made up 2%, Atheists accounted for 20% of the population and Undeclared for 6%. Christianity was the largest religion in the country, with virtually all Czechs being Christians until the 19th century, the Czechs gradually converted to Christianity from Slavic paganism between the 8th and the 10th century. Bořivoj I, Duke of Bohemia, baptised by the Saints Cyril, Christianity has been on the decline since the 20th century and in 2011 only 13. 9% of the Czech population declared themselves religious of which were 10. 5% Catholics and exactly 1% Protestants. A decline in the number of Czech Catholics began after World War I, during the Czechoslovak unification under a communist regime, most of the properties of the Church were confiscated by the government, although some were later returned. After the communist regime fell,39. 0% of Czechs were found to be Catholic in 1991, as of 2011 only 10. 5% of the Czechs considered themselves Catholic, which is about the same as in Protestant-majority England. The rapid trend away from Roman Catholic identification and toward irreligion in the Czech Republic stands in stark contrast to the situation in neighboring Poland or Slovakia, in the 15th century, the religious and social reformer Jan Hus formed a movement later named after him. Petr Chelčický continued with the Czech Hussite Reformation movement, during the next two centuries, most of Czechs were adherents of Hussitism. After 1526 Bohemia came increasingly under Habsburg control as the Habsburgs became first the elected, the Defenestration of Prague and subsequent revolt against the Habsburgs in 1618 marked the start of the Thirty Years War, which quickly spread throughout Central Europe. In 1620, the rebellion in Bohemia was crushed at the Battle of White Mountain, the war had a devastating effect on the local population, the people were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism. The Moravian Church, being tied to the region, is present too with a small number of members. The 2001 census counted 6,817 registered Buddhists in the Czech republic, most of the Vietnamese ethnic minority, which make up the largest immigrant ethnic group in the country, are adherents of Mahayana Buddhism. The Vietnamese mostly dwell in the cities of Prague and Cheb, thein An Buddhist Temple in the northern province of Varnsdorf was the first Vietnamese-style temple to be consecrated in the Czech Republic, in January 2008
11.
Hinduism
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Hinduism is a religion, or a way of life, found most notably in India and Nepal. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This Hindu synthesis started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE following the Vedic period, although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, it is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, shared textual resources, and pilgrimage to sacred sites. Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti and these texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Major scriptures include the Vedas and Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha, karma, samsara, and the various Yogas. Hindu practices include such as puja and recitations, meditation, family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals. Some Hindus leave their world and material possessions, then engage in lifelong Sannyasa to achieve Moksha. Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, Hinduism is the worlds third largest religion, with over one billion followers or 15% of the global population, known as Hindus. The majority of Hindus reside in India, Nepal, Mauritius, the Caribbean, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term, the Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as an alternative name of India. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion defies our desire to define and categorize it, Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and a way of life. From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion, in India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term religion. Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma, the study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of Hinduism, has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion. Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism, Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents
12.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
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Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
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Islam in Slovakia
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In 2010, there were an estimated 5,000 Muslims in Slovakia representing less than 0. 1% of the countrys population. Turks also had a suzerainty over the Principality of Upper Hungary, later on the Turks seized some further territories in southern central Slovakia and pillaged in territories up to Nitra. Finally, however, when the Turks lost the Battle of Vienna, most of the Muslims in Slovakia are refugees from former Yugoslavia or workers from modern Turkey, beside them a few Arab students. Most of the Muslims live in the capital Bratislava, smaller communities also exist in Košice, Slovakia is the last member state of the European Union without a mosque. In 2000, a dispute erupted about the building of an Islamic centre in Bratislava, in 2015, amidst the European migrant crisis, Slovakia agreed to admit 200 Christian asylum seekers, but refused to accept Muslims under an EU scheme to share migrants between member states. Slovak Ministry of Interior Affairs explained this decision by the absence of Muslim places of worship in Slovakia which will allegedly complicate the refugees integration in Slovak society, the decision was criticised by the EU which doubted its legality and expressed concern for its discriminatory nature. On 30 November 2016, Slovakia passed legislation to effectively block Islam from gaining official status as a religion in the country, Muslims in Slovakia work for positive integration Protestants and Muslims without legal status
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
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National Council (Slovakia)
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The National Council, abbreviated to NR SR, is the national parliament of Slovakia. It is unicameral, and consists of 150 members, who are elected by universal suffrage under proportional representation with seats distributed via Hagenbach-Bischoff quota every four years, Slovakias parliament has been called the National Council since 1 October 1992. From 1969 to 1992, its predecessor, the parliament of the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia, was called the Slovak National Council, the National Council approves domestic legislation, constitutional laws, and the annual budget. Its consent is required to ratify treaties, and is responsible for approving military operations. It also elects individuals to positions in the executive and judiciary as specified by law. The parliament building is situated on the hill, next to Bratislava Castle in Alexander Dubček Square. The 150-seat unicameral National Council of the Slovak Republic is Slovakias sole constitutional and it considers and approves the Constitution, constitutional statutes and other legal acts. It also approves the state budget and it elects some officials specified by law as well as the candidates for the position of a Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic and the Prosecutor General. Prior to their ratification, the parliament should approve all important international treaties, moreover, it gives consent for dispatching of military forces outside of Slovakias territory and for the presence of foreign military forces on the territory of the Slovak Republic. The parliament may vote if a majority of all its members are present. To pass a decision the approval of a majority of all MPs present is required. Almost all legal acts can be adopted by this relative majority, an absolute majority is required to pass a vote of no-confidence in the Cabinet or its members, or to elect and recall the Speaker or the Deputy Speakers. A qualified majority of 3/5 of all deputies is required for the adoption of a constitution or a constitutional statute, for the speakers see, List of speakers of Slovak parliaments The current speaker of the Slovak National Council is Andrej Danko. The length of the bars underneath represents each partys electoral performance, the difference in the total width of the bars is due to the election threshold of 5%, this threshold prevents a varying number of small parties from entering the National Council. Members of the parliament are elected directly for a 4-year term, although the suffrage is universal, only a citizen who has the right to vote, has attained 21 years of age and has permanent residency in the Slovak Republic is eligible to be elected. Similarly to the Netherlands and Israel, the country forms one multi-member constituency. Voters may indicate their preferences within the semi-open list, parliamentary elections were last held in 2016. The building is large to accommodate all officials and representatives
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Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
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Protestantism
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Protestantism is a form of Christianity which originated with the Reformation, a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the three divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The term derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical. Although there were earlier breaks from or attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church—notably by Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Protestants reject the notion of papal supremacy and deny the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but disagree among themselves regarding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Five solae summarize the reformers basic differences in theological beliefs, in the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, and Iceland. Reformed churches were founded in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by such reformers as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, the political separation of the Church of England from Rome under King Henry VIII brought England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement. Protestants developed their own culture, which made major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, some Protestant denominations do have a worldwide scope and distribution of membership, while others are confined to a single country. A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of families, Adventism, Anglicanism, Baptist churches, Reformed churches, Lutheranism, Methodism. Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, independent and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity. Six princes of the Holy Roman Empire and rulers of fourteen Imperial Free Cities, the edict reversed concessions made to the Lutherans with the approval of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V three years earlier. During the Reformation, the term was used outside of the German politics. The word evangelical, which refers to the gospel, was more widely used for those involved in the religious movement. Nowadays, this word is still preferred among some of the historical Protestant denominations in the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions in Europe, above all the term is used by Protestant bodies in the German-speaking area, such as the EKD. In continental Europe, an Evangelical is either a Lutheran or a Calvinist, the German word evangelisch means Protestant, and is different from the German evangelikal, which refers to churches shaped by Evangelicalism. The English word evangelical usually refers to Evangelical Protestant churches, and it traces its roots back to the Puritans in England, where Evangelicalism originated, and then was brought to the United States. Protestantism as a term is now used in contradistinction to the other major Christian traditions, i. e. Roman Catholicism. Initially, Protestant became a term to mean any adherent to the Reformation movement in Germany and was taken up by Lutherans. Even though Martin Luther himself insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ, French and Swiss Protestants preferred the word reformed, which became a popular, neutral and alternative name for Calvinists
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Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church
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The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia is a self-governing body of the Eastern Orthodox Church that territorially covers the countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Archbishop Rastislav of Prešov was elected by the Extraordinary Synod held on January 11,2014, the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia presents both an ancient history as well as a very modern history. The present day church occupies the land of Great Moravia, where the brothers Ss, in doing this they developed the first Slavic alphabet, a mixture of Greek and Hebrew-based characters with a few invented characters of their own to represent unique Slavic sounds. This was done at the express inviation of the powerful ruler Rastislav of Moravia, when an appeal of the ecclesiastical issue was made to Rome, Nicholas summoned both Cyril and Methodius and the complaining Frankish parties to his court to hear them out. For the next ten years, Methodius continued his work, but the death of John VIII in 882 removed his papal protection, after this, Pope Stephen V of Rome confirmed his Swabian co-adjutor Wiching as bishop. Methodiuss disciples were imprisoned, expelled to Bulgaria or enslaved, clement and Naum of Ohrid, formed the nucleus of the Slavic participation in the conversion of Bulgaria to Orthodoxy, after they were released from prison and escorted to the Danube. After the legal restraints to Orthodoxy were removed with the end of World War I, many looked to the Serbian Orthodox Church as parts of the Serbian church had been within the pre-war union. Among those seeking the Orthodox church was a Catholic priest, Matěj Pavlík, the Church of Serbia thus consented to consecrate Matěj Pavlík as a bishop of the Orthodox Church with the name Gorazd. On September 25,1921, Archimandrite Gorazd was consecrated Bishop of Moravia and Silesia at the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by Serbian Patriarch Dimitrije. Gorazd is considered to be in the succession from Archbishop Methodius of Moravia and bears the name of one of St. Methodiuss disciples and successor, as the Orthodox leader in the new nation of Czechoslovakia, Bp. Gorazd laid the foundations of the Orthodox Church throughout Bohemia, Moravia, in Bohemia, he oversaw the building of eleven churches and two chapels. He also published the books for the conduct of church services that were translated in the Czech language. He provided aid to those in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus which then were part of Czechoslovakia, thus, in the interbellum period, Bp. Gorazd built the small Czech church that during World War II would show how firmly it was connected to the Czech nation, in 1938 the Third Reich succeeded in annexing the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia during the Munich Conference. The following year it annexed the remainder of the Czech lands into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, by 1942 Reinhard Heydrich, architect of the Final Solution, had become governor of the Protectorate. After the May 27,1942, assassination attack on Heydrichs car in Prague, Czech partisans took refuge in the crypt of the Ss. Cyril and they were aided by senior church laymen, who kept Bp. However, their presence was discovered by the Nazis, and on June 18 the Nazis attacked their hiding place in the cathedral, the Orthodox priests, laymen, and Bp. Gorazd were arrested and killed by firing squads on September 4,1942, in reprisal the Nazis forbade the church to operate in Bohemia and Moravia
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Jehovah's Witnesses
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Jehovahs Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a membership of more than 8.3 million adherents involved in evangelism. Jehovahs Witnesses are directed by the Governing Body of Jehovahs Witnesses, a group of elders in Warwick, New York and they prefer to use their own translation, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, although their literature occasionally quotes and cites other Bible translations. The name Jehovahs witnesses was adopted in 1931 to distinguish themselves from other Bible Student groups, Jehovahs Witnesses are best known for their door-to-door preaching, distributing literature such as The Watchtower and Awake. and refusing military service and blood transfusions. They consider use of the name Jehovah vital for proper worship and they reject Trinitarianism, inherent immortality of the soul, and hellfire, which they consider to be unscriptural doctrines. They do not observe Christmas, Easter, birthdays or other holidays, adherents commonly refer to their body of beliefs as the truth and consider themselves to be in the truth. They consider secular society to be corrupt and under the influence of Satan. Congregational disciplinary actions include disfellowshipping, their term for formal expulsion, baptized individuals who formally leave are considered disassociated and are also shunned. Disfellowshipped and disassociated individuals may eventually be reinstated if deemed repentant, the religions position regarding conscientious objection to military service and refusal to salute national flags has brought it into conflict with some governments. Consequently, some Jehovahs Witnesses have been persecuted and their activities are banned or restricted in some countries, persistent legal challenges by Jehovahs Witnesses have influenced legislation related to civil rights in several countries. The organization has received criticism over issues surrounding biblical translation, doctrines, handling of abuse cases. The claims are rejected by the leaders, and some have been disputed by courts. In 1870, Charles Taze Russell and others formed a group in Pittsburgh, in 1876, Russell met Nelson H. Barbour, later that year they jointly produced the book Three Worlds, which combined restitutionist views with end time prophecy. Beginning in 1878 Russell and Barbour jointly edited a religious journal, from 1879, Watch Tower supporters gathered as autonomous congregations to study the Bible topically. Thirty congregations were founded, and during 1879 and 1880, Russell visited each to provide the format he recommended for conducting meetings, as congregations continued to form during Russells ministry, they each remained self-administrative, functioning under the congregationalist style of church governance. In 1881, Zions Watch Tower Tract Society was presided over by William Henry Conley, by about 1900, Russell had organized thousands of part- and full-time colporteurs, and was appointing foreign missionaries and establishing branch offices. By the 1910s, Russells organization maintained nearly a hundred pilgrims, Russell engaged in significant global publishing efforts during his ministry, and by 1912, he was the most distributed Christian author in the United States. He identified the movement as Bible Students, and more formally as the International Bible Students Association
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Atheism
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Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist, in an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists, the etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek ἄθεος, meaning without god. The term denoted a social category created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed, the actual term atheism emerged first in the 16th century. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope, the first individuals to identify themselves using the word atheist lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, noted for its unprecedented atheism, witnessed the first major movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason. Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to social and historical approaches, although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult, an older survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 2004 recorded atheists as comprising 8% of the worlds population. Other older estimates have indicated that atheists comprise 2% of the worlds population, according to these polls, Europe and East Asia are the regions with the highest rates of atheism. In 2015, 61% of people in China reported that they were atheists, the figures for a 2010 Eurobarometer survey in the European Union reported that 20% of the EU population claimed not to believe in any sort of spirit, God or life force. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism, and has also been contrasted with it, a variety of categories have been used to distinguish the different forms of atheism. Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity, the plurality of wildly different conceptions of God and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheisms applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities, gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist, Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas, as far back as 1772, Baron dHolbach said that All children are born Atheists, they have no idea of God. Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that, The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist, ernest Nagel contradicts Smiths definition of atheism as merely absence of theism, acknowledging only explicit atheism as true atheism
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Methodism
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Methodism, or the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity which derive their inspiration from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and Johns brother Charles Wesley were also significant leaders in the movement and it originated as a revival within the 18th century Church of England and became a separate Church after Wesleys death. Because of vigorous missionary work, the movement spread throughout the British Empire, Wesleys theology focused on sanctification and the effect of faith on the character of a Christian. Distinguishing Methodist doctrines include an assurance of salvation, imparted righteousness, the possibility of perfection in love, the works of piety and the primacy of Scripture. Most Methodists teach that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all of humanity and that salvation is available for all, in theology and this teaching rejects the Calvinist position that God has pre-ordained the salvation of a select group of people. However, Whitefield and several others were considered Calvinistic Methodists and held to the latter position, Methodism emphasises charity and support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the works of mercy. These ideals are put into practice by the establishment of hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens and schools to follow Christs command to spread the gospel, the movement has a wide variety of forms of worship, ranging from high church to low church in liturgical usage. Denominations that descend from the British Methodist tradition are generally less ritualistic, Methodism is known for its rich musical tradition and Charles Wesley was instrumental in writing much of the hymnody of the Methodist Church. In Britain, the Methodist Church had an effect in the early decades of the making of the working class. In the United States, it became the religion of many slaves who later formed black churches in the Methodist tradition. The Methodist revival began with a group of men, including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles, the Wesley brothers founded the Holy Club at the University of Oxford, where John was a fellow and later a lecturer at Lincoln College. The club met weekly and they set about living a holy life. They were accustomed to receiving Communion every week, fasting regularly, abstaining from most forms of amusement and luxury and frequently visited the sick, the fellowship were branded as Methodist by their fellow students because of the way they used rule and method to go about their religious affairs. John, who was leader of the club, took the attempted mockery, unsuccessful in their work, the brothers returned to England conscious of their lack of genuine Christian faith. They looked for help to Peter Boehler and other members of the Moravian Church, at a Moravian service in Aldersgate on 24 May 1738, John experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his heart strangely warmed. Charles had reported an experience an few days previously. Considered a pivotal moment, Daniel L. John Wesley came under the influence of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, Arminius had rejected the Calvinist teaching that God had pre-ordained an elect number of people to eternal bliss while others perished eternally. Conversely, George Whitefield, Howell Harris, and Selina Hastings, George Whitefield, returning from his own mission in Georgia, joined the Wesley brothers in what was rapidly to become a national crusade
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Wooden churches of the Slovak Carpathians
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They include two Roman Catholic, three Protestant and three Greek Catholic churches plus one belfry in Hronsek. In addition to these there are about 50 more wooden churches in the territory of present-day Slovakia mainly in the northern and eastern part of the Prešov Region. Roman Catholic wooden church of St. Francis of Assisi in Hervartov has a Gothic character as represented by its tall and it was built in the second half of the 15th century and thus represents the oldest of its type in Slovakia. The floor is made of stones again unlike in most of churches where it is usually made of wood. Rare wall paintings were added in 1665 during the period and they depict, among others, Adam. The main altar of Virgin Mary, St. Catherine of Alexandria, Roman Catholic Gothic church of All Saints in Tvrdošín was built in the second half of the 15th century and modified in a Renaissance style in the 17th century. Baroque main altar depicting All Saints is from the end of the 17th century, remaining part of the original Gothic altar with St. Peter and St. John the Baptist ended up in muzeum in Budapest after the World War I. Worth of notice are also ceiling paintings depicting the starry heaven, severe restrictions embodied in the articles of the Congress of Sopron that enabled building of Protestant, so called articular, churches caused their extraordinary appearance. They must have built within the single year, without any metal parts such as nails. Thus the construction of the church in Hronsek began on 23 October 1725 and was finished in the autumn of the 1726, Church is 8m high and has a shape of the cross with arms 23 and 18m long. As there are many unusual motives from Scandinavian architecture, it is assumed that craftsmen from Norway and/or Sweden participated on the construction site, unique is also the ordering of the benches on the choirs so that the church can accommodate 1100 worshipers through its 5 doors. The altar has 6 tables from 1771 by Master Samuel Kialovič, construction of the wooden evangelical articular church in Leštiny in the Orava region of Slovakia was ordered by Jób Zmeškal and finished in 1688. Interior dates back to the 17th and 18th century nad it is beautifully painted. Main altar is from the 18th century and the famous Slovak poet Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav was baptised here as well, in order to raise money for the construction of the church, fund-raising campaigns were conducted in many parts of Europe, e. g. Sweden and Denmark. Ceiling paintings started in 1717 and continued for several decades and they depict blue heaven,12 apostles,4 evangelists, plus the Holy Trinity above the altar. Ján Lerch from Kežmarok made the altar between 1718 and 1727 with the motive of the Calvary. Extraordinary masterwork is also the organ built between 1717 and 1720 by Vavrinec Čajkovský, and extended in 1729 by Master Martin Korabinský from Spišská Nová Ves, after general restoration in the 1990s services are again regularly hold there. Artistically it belongs to folk Baroque style, Church is surrounded with the cemetery, wall, and the belfry from the 19th century
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Greek-Catholic
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The Melkite and Italo-Greek churches also have claims of perpetual communion. Full communion constitutes mutual sacramental sharing between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church, including Eucharistic intercommunion, notably, Eastern Catholic churches have different traditions concerning clerical celibacy than the Latin Church, in general, Eastern Catholic Churches allow the ordination of married men as priests. Eastern Catholic churches have their origins in the Middle East, East Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin Catholics in the Middle East, on the other hand, are traditionally served by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Eastern Catholic churches are instead distinct particular churches sui iuris, although maintain full, there are different meanings of the word rite. Apart from its reference to the patrimony of a particular church. The rites treated in CCEO, unless stated, are those that arise from the Alexandrian, Antiochene. The Second Vatican Council spoke of Eastern Catholic Churches as particular Churches or rites, in 1999, the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops stated, We have been accustomed to speaking of the Latin Rite or the Eastern Rites to designate these different Churches. Canon 112 of the Code of Canon Law uses the phrase autonomous ritual Churches to designate the various Churches, and a writer in a periodical of January 2006 declared, The Eastern Churches are still mistakenly called Eastern-rite Churches, a reference to their various liturgical histories. They are most properly called Eastern Churches, or Eastern Catholic Churches, however, the term rite continues to be used. The 1983 CIC forbids a Latin bishop to ordain, without permission of the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, in his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, that any Catholic priest of the Latin rite, under certain conditions, may use either edition of the Roman Missal. The term Uniat or Uniate applies to Eastern Catholic churches previously part of Eastern or Oriental Orthodox churches or of the Assyrian Church of the East. The term is considered to have a derogatory connotation, though it was occasionally used by Latin. Official Catholic documents no longer use the due to its perceived negative overtones. According to John Erickson of Saint Vladimirs Orthodox Theological Seminary, The term uniate itself, Eastern Rite Catholic also was no longer in vogue because it might suggest that the Catholics in question differed from Latins only in the externals of worship. The Second Vatican Council affirmed rather that Eastern Catholics constituted churches whose vocation was to provide a bridge to the churches of the East. Communion between Christian churches has been broken over matters of faith, whereby each side accused the other of heresy or departure from the true faith, communion has been broken also because of disagreement about questions of authority or the legitimacy of the election of a particular bishop. In these latter cases each side accused the other of schism, Major breaches of communion, In 431 the Churches that accepted the teaching of the Council of Ephesus classified as heretics those who rejected the Councils statements. The Church of the East, which was mainly under the Sassanid Empire and it later experienced a period of great expansion in Asia before collapsing after the Mongol invasion of the Middle East in the 14th century
26.
Nativity of Mary
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The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Nativity of Mary, or the Birth of the Virgin Mary, refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The modern canon of scripture does not record Marys birth, the earliest known account of Marys birth is found in the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal text from the late second century, with her parents known as Saint Anne and Saint Joachim. In the case of saints, the Church commemorates their date of death, with Saint John the Baptist, the reason for this is found in the singular mission each had in salvation history, but traditionally also because these alone were holy in their very birth. Devotion to the innocence of Mary under this Marian title is celebrated in many cultures across the globe. The Protoevangelium of James, which was put into its final written form in the early second century. He and his wife Anne were deeply grieved by their childlessness, pious accounts place the birthplace of the Virgin Mary in Tzippori, Israel where a 5th-century basilica is excavated at the site. Some accounts speak of Nazareth and others say it was in a house near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem and it is possible that a wealthy man such as Joachim had a home in both Judea and Galilee. The Greek Orthodox likewise celebrate the Nativity of the Theotokos on 8 September, the feast is also celebrated by Syrian Christians on 8 September. For churches using the old Julian Calendar for liturgical purposes September 8 falls on September 21 of the Gregorian Calendar, the Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians on 9 May. The feast is also included in the Tridentine Calendar for 8 September, the earliest document commemorating this feast comes from a hymn written in the sixth century. The first liturgical commemoration is connected with the sixth century dedication of the Basilica Sanctae Mariae ubi nata est, now called the Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem. The original church built, in the century, was a Marian basilica erected on the spot known as the shepherds pool. In the seventh century, the feast was celebrated by the Byzantines as the feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, since the story of Marys Nativity is known only from apocryphal sources, the Latin Church was slower in adopting this festival. At Rome the Feast began to be kept toward the end of the 7th century, the church of Angers in France claims that St. Maurilius instituted this feast at Angers in consequence of a revelation about 430. The winegrowers in France called this feast Our Lady of the Grape Harvest, the best grapes are brought to the local church to be blessed and then some bunches are attached to the hands of the statue of Mary. A festive meal that includes the new grapes is part of this day, in Mangalore it is the feast of Marys Nativity, called the Monthi Fest, on this day every Mangaloreans eat pulses and vegetables. The priest bless a branch of grain which is added to food. Before the feast on 8 September there is 9 days of novena followed by throwing of flowers on baby Marys statue The scene was depicted in art
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Baptists
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Other tenets of Baptist churches include soul competency, salvation through faith alone, Scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists recognize two ministerial offices, elders and deacons, Baptist churches are widely considered to be Protestant churches, though some Baptists disavow this identity. Historians trace the earliest church labeled Baptist back to 1609 in Amsterdam, in accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christs atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect. Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies, in the mid-18th century, the First Great Awakening contributed to Baptist growth in both New England and the South. Baptist missionaries have spread their church to every continent, the largest Baptist denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention, with the membership of associated churches totaling more than 15 million. Modern Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement in the century after the rise of the original Protestant denominations and this view of Baptist origins has the most historical support and is the most widely accepted. Adherents to this position consider the influence of Anabaptists upon early Baptists to be minimal and it was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical truth had been discovered, during the Protestant Reformation, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation, there also were Christians who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses. Of those most critical of the Churchs direction, some chose to stay and they became known as Puritans and are described by Gourley as cousins of the English Separatists. Others decided they must leave the Church because of their dissatisfaction, historians trace the earliest Baptist church back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with John Smyth as its pastor. Three years earlier, while a Fellow of Christs College, Cambridge, reared in the Church of England, he became Puritan, English Separatist, and then a Baptist Separatist, and ended his days working with the Mennonites. He began meeting in England with 60–70 English Separatists, in the face of great danger, Smyth and his lay supporter, Thomas Helwys, together with those they led, broke with the other English exiles because Smyth and Helwys were convinced they should be baptized as believers. In 1609 Smyth first baptized himself and then baptized the others, in 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled The Character of the Beast, or The False Constitution of the Church. In it he expressed two propositions, first, infants are not to be baptized, and second, Antichristians converted are to be admitted into the true Church by baptism. Hence, his conviction was that a church should consist only of regenerate believers who have been baptized on a personal confession of faith
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Seventh-day Adventist Church
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The denomination grew out of the Millerite movement in the United States during the mid-19th century and was formally established in 1863. Among its founders was Ellen G. White, whose writings are still held in high regard by the church. Much of the theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church corresponds to common Protestant Christian teachings, such as the Trinity, distinctive teachings include the unconscious state of the dead and the doctrine of an investigative judgment. The church is known for its emphasis on diet and health, its understanding of the person, promotion of religious liberty. The world church is governed by a General Conference, with smaller regions administered by divisions, union conferences and it currently has a worldwide baptized membership of over 20 million people, and 25 million adherents. As of May 2007, it was the twelfth-largest religious body in the world, and it is ethnically and culturally diverse, and maintains a missionary presence in over 200 countries and territories. The church operates schools, hospitals, and publishing houses worldwide, as well as a humanitarian aid organization known as the Adventist Development. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is the largest of several Adventist groups which arose from the Millerite movement of the 1840s in upstate New York, a phase of the Second Great Awakening. William Miller predicted on the basis of Daniel 8, 14–16, in the summer of 1844, Millerites came to believe that Jesus would return on October 22,1844, understood to be the biblical Day of Atonement for that year. When this did not happen, most of his followers disbanded and returned to their original churches. Hiram Edson and other Millerites came to believe that Millers calculations were correct and these Adventists came to the conviction that Daniel 8,14 foretold Christs entrance into the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary rather than his Second Coming. As the early Adventist movement consolidated its beliefs, the question of the day of rest. The foremost proponent of Sabbath-keeping among early Adventists was Joseph Bates, Bates was introduced to the Sabbath doctrine through a tract written by Millerite preacher Thomas M. Preble, who in turn had been influenced by Rachel Oakes Preston, a young Seventh Day Baptist. This message was accepted and formed the topic of the first edition of the church publication The Present Truth. They embraced the doctrines of the Sabbath, the heavenly sanctuary interpretation of Daniel 8,14, conditional immortality, among its most prominent figures were Joseph Bates, James White, and Ellen G. White. Ellen White came to occupy a central role, her many visions. The church was established in Battle Creek, Michigan, on May 21,1863. The denominational headquarters were moved from Battle Creek to Takoma Park, Maryland
29.
Czechoslovak Hussite Church
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The Czechoslovak Hussite Church is a Christian church that separated from the Roman Catholic Church after World War I in former Czechoslovakia. It traces its tradition back to the Hussite reformers and acknowledges Jan Hus as its predecessor and it contains mixed Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and national elements. Classifying it as one is disputable. The radical movement that resulted in the foundation of a new Church began in the Christmas season of 1919, the CCH was established on January 8,1920 by Dr. Karel Farský, who became its first Patriarch and author of its liturgy. It was known until 1971 as the Czechoslovak Church, the head of the church continues to bear the title of Patriarch. Membership is estimated at between 100,000 and 180,000 adherents, mostly in the Czech Republic and some in Slovakia, there are approximately 266 priests in active ministry, of whom 130 are women. Candidates of ministry are prepared at the Hussite Faculty of Theology at Charles University in Prague, like Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Anglo-Catholics, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church recognizes seven sacraments. The celebration of the liturgy is the center of worship practice and it used to be two forms, which have much in common with the texts of the Catholic Mass, but there are also elements of Luthers German Mass and the tradition of the Utraquist mass. There is no veneration of saints as practiced in the Apostolic Churches, in the post-1920 period new churches were built, but only a few portraits were considered appropriate to place in them, particularly representations of Christ, and occasionally pictures of Jan Hus. In the iconography of the church the chalice plays a role, usually depicted in red. It is found in the church, to the sacerdotal, the bindings of liturgical books, church steeples, after a split from the Catholic Church, amidst the post-war atmosphere of anti-Catholic agitation and euphoria about the Czech independence, the Czechoslovak Churchs membership increased rapidly. In the 1921 Czechoslovak census, the first post-war census,523,232 people claimed to be adherents of this church in what is today the Czech Republic, in 1930, the membership further grew to 779,672. With 7. 3% of total population, it became the religion in several regions of Bohemia. At the beginning of the communist rule the 1950 census recorded 946,497 adherents of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic, the Conference of European Churches, and the Leuenberg Community of Churches. Relations between the church and other members of the movement are cordial, but remained strained with the countrys Roman Catholic leadership. The first woman to become a bishop of the Czechoslovak Hussite church, in 2000, Catholic representatives attended the consecration of Jana Šilerová as the Hussite Church’s first woman to become a bishop. G. Herder-Institut, Marburg/Lahn, ISBN 3-87969-103-7, in German Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic Official Website of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church
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Slavic Native Faith
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Slavic neopaganism or the Slavic native faith is the contemporary continuation of the ethnic religion of the Slavic peoples. It is characterised by a pantheist and polytheist theology, a focus on Slavic culture and folklore, in English sources the religion is often called Ridnoviry and its followers Ridnovirs. The term Rodnovery, from Russian, is also in use, some Slavic native faith groups also incorporate elements of Hinduism and Vedism. Rodnovery comes from Slavic compounds adapted to English, made up of родная or родной, meaning native, plus вера, Rodnovers generally dont refuse to be categorised as pagans, but virtually none accept the prefix neo-. Rodnovery can also be anglicised as Rodism or Rodianism, which drops the vera suffix, thus meaning simply religion of the Rod, religion of the Root, according to this view Rodnovery is a word that embodies the central concept of the Slavic native faith. Other names that are in use in Russia for the religion, although popular, are славянство or Slavianstvo, which in English is Slavism or Slavianism. The first name has been used by a community in Moscow maintaining that the term Slav originally means pious, the basic structure of a temple of the Slavic native faith is constituted by a sacred precinct at the centre of which are placed the images of the gods enshrined. There are many temples throughout Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. A large, formal one is projected to be built in Khabarovsk, the Slavic Kremlin, a centre of the Yarga Rodnover religious network in the Podolsky District of Moscow Oblast, hosts a typical wooden temple among its buildings. In 2015 the Temple of the Fire of Svarozich, in the form of a building, was opened by the Union of Slavic Rodnover Communities in Krasotynka. Unlike earlier authors, Dołęga-Chodakowski identified Christianity as an influence on national character. It was also rife with literary hoaxes and fakes, such as the Kraledvorsky Manuscript, the Prillwitz idols, as in other European countries, many Slavic nations developed their own Slavic faith movements in the first half of the 20th century. The German and Polish groups were already referred to as neopagan in press articles before World War II. Alarmed by the growth of Rodnovery in Slavic countries, exponents of the Orthodox Church gathered on 19 September 2015 launching a smartphone application of apologetics against the movement. Ecology and respect for nature is а prevalent theme, piotr Wiench has claimed that nationalism is less important than ecology to most groups, describing a movement inspired by nature-based spirituality. Many groups use extensive symbolism drawn from the world and many hold their religious ceremonies outdoors in sparsely populated areas. Wiench mentions one group that dances to drums in the forest near Poznań, aitamurto describes a number of common themes, such as nationalism, concern for the environment, warrior themes and indigenous values. Her analysis focuses primarily on Russian groups, which she describes as heterogenous and ranging from pacifism to xenophobia, Rodnovery in Belarus has ties in politics, particularly within the pro-Russian political scene
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Bratislava
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Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, and with a population of about 450,000, the countrys largest city. The greater metropolitan area is home to more than 650,000 people, Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia, occupying both banks of the River Danube and the left bank of the River Morava. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the national capital that borders two sovereign states. The history of the city has strongly influenced by people of different nations and religions, namely by Austrians, Croats, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Jews, Serbs. The city served as the site and legislative center of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536 to 1783. Bratislava is the political, cultural and economic centre of Slovakia and it is the seat of the Slovak president, the parliament and the Slovak Executive. It is home to several universities, museums, theatres, galleries, many of Slovakias large businesses and financial institutions also have headquarters there. The capital of Slovakia is the eighth best city for freelancers to live in, mostly because of fast internet, in 2017, Bratislava was ranked as the third richest region of the European Union by GDP per capita. GDP at purchasing power parity is about three times higher than in other Slovak regions, the city received its contemporary name in 1919. Beforehand it was known in English by its German name, Pressburg, as it was long dominated by Austrians. This is the term which the German, the pre-1919 Slovak, the citys Hungarian name, Pozsony, was given after the castles first castellan, Poson. The origin of the name is unclear, it come from the Czech Pos or the German Poscho. Hungarian speakers still use the Hungarian name, Pozsony, the medieval settlement Brezalauspurc is sometimes attributed to Bratislava, however the actual location of Brezalauspurc is under scholarly debate. The citys modern name is credited to Pavel Jozef Šafáriks misinterpretation of Braslav as Bratislav when analyzing medieval sources, thus coming up with the term Břetislaw, during the revolution of 1918–1919, the name Wilsonov or Wilsonstadt was proposed by American Slovaks, as he supported national self-determination. The name Bratislava, which was used only by some Slovak patriots. The name Pressburg was also used in English-language publications until 1919, in older documents, confusion can be caused by the Latin forms Bratislavia, Wratislavia etc. which refer to Wrocław, Poland – not to Bratislava. The first known permanent settlement of the area began with the Linear Pottery Culture, about 200 BC, the Celtic Boii tribe founded the first significant settlement, a fortified town known as an oppidum. They also established a mint, producing silver coins known as biatecs, the area fell under Roman influence from the 1st to the 4th century AD and was made part of the Danubian Limes, a border defence system
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Martin, Slovakia
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Martin is a city in northern Slovakia, situated on the Turiec river, between the Malá Fatra and Veľká Fatra mountains, near the city of Žilina. The population numbers approximately 55000, which makes it the eighth largest city in Slovakia and it is the center of the Turiec region and the District of Martin. From the second half of the 10th century until 1918, it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, the first recorded reference to Martin in written sources is dated to 1284 under the name of Vila Sancti Martini. In the turbulent 15th century, Martin suffered from many disasters, for example from the attack of the Hussites in 1433, when the town was burned down. Just 10 years later, it was destroyed again by an earthquake and Martin started to be degraded from royal to the privileged town. Since the 18th century, Martin became centre of the Turóc county, the town became the foremost Slovak cultural center in the 19th century. Several cultural institutions were founded there, most political activities leading to the Slovak national emancipation in the 19th and early 20th centuries were organized in or from Martin. The town was also industrialized at this time, the first printing works were established in 1869, the furniture factory Tatra nábytok in 1890, and so on. The town lost some of its importance after Pressburg became the capital of Slovakia in 1919, today, it is the seat of the Slovak National Library and Slovak Matica. National Council of the Slovak Republic declared the City of Martin the center of culture of the Slovaks on August 24,1994.74 square kilometres. It is located in northern Slovakia, in the Turiec Basin, mountain ranges in the proximity of the city are Lesser Fatra and Greater Fatra, more to the south are Žiar and Kremnica Mountains. The nearest major cities are Žilina,30 kilometres away to the north-west, Banská Bystrica,60 kilometres away to the south-east, Martin has 10 boroughs, Jahodníky, Ľadoveň, Stred, Sever, Košúty, Podháj, Stráne, Priekopa, Tomčany and Záturčie. Martin lies in the temperate zone and has a continental climate with four distinct seasons. It is characterized by a significant variation between hot summers and cold, snowy winters, average annual temperature is around 7 °C and average annual rainfall is 750–860 mm, most of the rainfall is in June and in the first half of July. Snow cover lasts from 60 to 80 days per year, Martin has a population of 55000. Since end of 90s when the reached the top every year a slight decrease has been observed. According to the 2001 census,94. 9% of inhabitants were Slovaks,1. 6% Czechs,0. 5% Romani, the religious makeup was 44. 1% Roman Catholics,31. 2% people with no religious affiliation, and 17. 2% Lutherans. According to the 2011 census,81. 7% of inhabitants were Slovaks,1. 0% Czechs,0. 09% Roma, and 0. 2% Hungarians and 16. 2% did not specify nationality
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History of the Jews in Slovakia
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The History of the Jews in Slovakia goes back to the 11th century, when the first Jews settled in the area. In the 14th century, about 800 Jews lived in Bratislava, in the early 15th century, a Jewish cemetery was established at Tisinec and was in use until 1892. In 1494, a blood libel caused a number of Jews to be burned at the stake, in 1529, thirty Jews were burned at the stake in Pezinok. In 1683, hundreds of Jews from Moravia fled to Slovakia, seeking refuge from Kuruc riots, in 1700, a leading yeshiva was established in Bratislava and recognized by the government. Under Joseph II, Jews received many additional civil liberties, in 1867, Slovakia became part of Austria-Hungary and was classified as Northern Hungary. The Hungarian parliament subsequently passed legislation promoting assimilation among minorities, including Jews, although the government supported Jewish participation in industry, the Jewish population grew, especially in small, secluded towns in the east. However, widespread antisemitism prevented Jews from assimilating, in 1882 and 1883, antisemitic rioting occurred in several towns. In 1896, the Reception Law was introduced, under this law, Judaism and Christianity were placed on an equal level. Shortly afterward, the Slovak Clerical Peoples Party was formed and its main interests were anti-liberalism and limiting Jewish influence. During the 19th century and early 20th century, the Zionist movement also reached Slovakia, in 1903, Bratislava hosted the First Hungarian Zionist Convention, and the following year, the First World Mizrahi Congress was held there. In 1919, the National Federation of Slovak Jews and the Jewish Party were established, in the 1929 elections, the Jewish Party won two seats in parliament. In addition, a Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Peoples Paper, was first published in Bratislava on August 2,1919. In the first national census in Czechoslovakia, carried out on February 15,1921,135,918 people registered as practicing Jews, in addition, there were 165 Orthodox and 52 Reform congregations in the country. In the 1930s, antisemitic rioting and demonstrations broke out, incited by the Slovak Peoples Party, some 5,000 Jews emigrated before the outbreak of World War II and several thousands afterwards, but most were killed in the Holocaust. The Hlinka Guard began to attack Jews, and the Jewish Code was passed in September 1941, resembling the Nuremberg Laws, the Code required that Jews wear a yellow armband and were banned from intermarriage and many jobs. By 1940, more than 6,000 Jews had emigrated, the pro-Nazi regime of President Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest, agreed to deport its Jews as part of the Nazi Final Solution. By October 1941,15,000 Jews were expelled from Bratislava, originally, the Slovak government tried to make a deal with Germany in October 1941 to deport its Jews as a substitute for providing Slovak workers to help the war effort. The initial terms were for 20,000 young, strong Jews, the deportations of Jews from Slovakia started on March 25,1942
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Religion in Slovakia
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Christianity is the predominant religion in Slovakia. The majority of Slovaks belong to the Roman Catholic Church, with the addition of a further 4% of Greek Catholics, members of a Protestant denomination, mainly Lutheran or Reformed, account for 9%. Members of other churches, including those non-registered, account for 1. 1% of the population, the Eastern Orthodox Christians are mostly found in Ruthenian areas. The Roman Catholic Church divides the country into 8 dioceses including 3 archdioceses in two different provinces, the Slovak Greek Catholic Church is a Metropolitan sui iuris Church with three Eparchies in Slovakia and one in Canada. Generally about one third of church members attend church services. The religious situation is different from that in the neighbouring Czech Republic. Other religions practiced in Slovakia include Baháí Faith, Hinduism, Islam, there are 18 registered churches and religions. There were an estimated 0. 2% Muslims in Slovakia in 2010, while the country had an estimated pre-World War II Jewish population of 90,000, only about 2,300 Jews remain today. The law passed by a majority at the parliament. In 2010, there were an estimated 5,000 Muslims in Slovakia representing less than 0. 1% of the countrys population, the largest pagan group in Slovakia is Krug Peruna. Moreover, it has not only in Bratislava but also in other cities such as Martin
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