Jan Hus

Jan Hus was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the inspiration of Hussitism, a key predecessor to Protestantism.

Hus opposed many aspects of the Catholic Church in Bohemia, such as its views on ecclesiology, simony, the Eucharist, and other theological topics. He was eventually burned at the stake for heresy against the teachings of the Catholic Church.

After Hus was executed, the followers of his religious teachings (known as Hussites) refused to elect another Catholic monarch and defeated five consecutive papal crusades between 1420 and 1431 in what became known as the Hussite Wars.

Hus was a master, dean and rector at the Charles University in Prague between 1409 and 1410.

Hus was excommunicated by Pope Alexander V, but the excommunication was not enforced. He then spoke out against Alexander V’s successor, Antipope John XXIII, for his selling of indulgences, and his excommunication was then enforced.

When the Council of Constance assembled, Hus was asked to be there and present his views on the dissension within the Church. When he arrived, with a promise of safe-conduct, he was arrested and put in prison. He was eventually taken in front of the council and asked to recant his views, but he refused. On 6 July 1415, he was burned at the stake for heresy against the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Both the Bohemian and the Moravian populations remained majority Hussite until the 1620s, when a Protestant defeat in the Battle of the White Mountain resulted in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown coming under Habsburg dominion for the next 300 years and being subject to immediate and forced conversion in an intense campaign of return to Catholicism.