By Ricky, on February 11th, 2013
Two Cardinals, the Protestant head of the Czech Ecumenical Council, a Roman Catholic Bishop, & a Protestant layman. But only Cardinal Duka, (second left), will vote in the papal conclave © Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic
I was going to write about something completely different, but as today’s news media is most unusually, full of a story about one part of the Christian Church, I think I’ll be topical instead. Yes – most unexpectedly, Pope Benedict XVI has this day announced his intention to resign his office at the end of February – the first Pope to do so for nearly 600 years.
What is one to make of all of this? The official reason given for Pope Benedict’s decision to resign is his increasingly frail health. He is nearly 86 years old and in recent times, has been pushed around St. . . . → Read More: The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI
By Ricky, on January 21st, 2013
Karel Schwarzenberg election poster on the bar at Restaurace U Topolu © Ricky Yates
On Friday and Saturday of this coming week, the Czech electorate will vote in the second and final round of voting to choose their new President. The first round, in which there were nine candidates, took place on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th January. Because no candidate got over 50% of the vote in that first round, the top two candidates are involved in a run-off in the second round.
The winner will replace the current President Václav Klaus, whose second five-year term of office expires in March. This is the first time that the Czech President has been directly elected by the people. Previously, the appointment was made by a joint vote of the two houses of the Czech parliament – the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
Whilst the . . . → Read More: The Czech Presidential Election
By Ricky, on August 21st, 2012
Sv Jakuba / Church of St James, Brno © Ricky Yates
As I explained in my previous post, we spent the last weekend of our recent holiday, in Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic. Brno is just over 200 kilometres south-east of Prague and is situated at the confluence of the Svratka and Svitava rivers. With a population of about 400,000, the city is about one third of the size of the Czech capital.
Within the historic centre of Brno, there are a whole variety of different Churches. The one pictured on the left here, is dedicated to Sv Jakuba / St. James and is a fine example of baroque architecture. According to my ‘Brno City Guide’, the top of the spire is 92 metres high.
We were pleased to be able to walk around the interior of the Church and observe the . . . → Read More: A weekend in Brno
By Ricky, on August 4th, 2012
The Cathedral Church of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates
The historic small city of Kutná Hora lies about 70 kilometres east of Prague and it took us around an hour and twenty minutes to drive there on Tuesday 24th July. It is a popular place to visit on a day trip from Prague and of all the places we visited during our recent ‘staycation’, it was the one where we saw greatest number of other tourists.
The west end of the Cathedral Church of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates
During early mediaeval times, Kutná Hora was as significant a settlement as Prague, its wealth coming from the mining of silver in the surrounding hills. It was here that silver groschen were minted which was the hard currency of Central Europe during that time. However, a combination of the silver . . . → Read More: Kutná Hora
By Ricky, on February 20th, 2012
Bechyne Church © Ricky Yates
At the end of my recent post about the Ecumenical Service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I mentioned the Pfarrer Initiative in Austria, that calls for radical reform within the Roman Catholic Church. I did promise a future blog post about it. So here it is!
The Pfarrer Initiative is an open call to disobedience by nearly 400 Roman Catholic priests and deacons in Austria. As such, they constitute roughly 10% of the Austrian Roman Catholic clergy. You can read their original ‘Appeal to Disobedience’ in English, by following this link. However inevitably, most other online material about this radical reform movement is only available in German.
This initiative arises out of two major issues that increasingly face Roman Catholic priests across Europe and North America. How to offer the . . . → Read More: The Austrian Pfarrer Initiative/Priests’ Initiative – a call for honesty
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