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Protestant congregations and Spiritualism in Podkrkonoší
Kletvík, Jan ; Halama, Ota (advisor) ; Rejchrtová, Noemi (referee)
After 1781 there were established several Protestant congregations in Podkrkonoší (North-East Bohemia). Approximately one hundred years later, the whole region was greatly affected by Spiritualism, a belief in communication with spirits of the dead through mediums. My objective is to describe the attitudes of the Protestant congregations in Podkrkonoší towards Spiritualism and analyse their causes and effects. Understanding these attitudes will yield an insight into the character of the present congregations. For this purpose, I studied the congregations in Libštát, Křížlice, and Jičín. In particular I focused on their parish priests because they had the control over their flock in these questions. I went through the archival materials of the respective congregations as well as personal diaries, and I analysed the memories of several interviewed people. These findings were then compared with the attitudes of some congregations in Great Britain. The results revealed three different approaches of the priests. Some were very radical, which led to excommunication of Spiritualists. Others were rather tolerant, which resulted in integration of Spiritualists. Finally, some priests were quite secretive, so their parishioners may not have seen a clear line between Spiritualism and Christianity.
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