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The Catholic Church in the Czech Republic

The Catholic Church is the largest organized religious community in the Czech Republic.

According to data provided by parish spiritual administrators, Sunday services are regularly attended by roughly 375 thousand people. The most Catholics live in South, Central and Southeast Moravia, and the fewest live in North and West Bohemia. The Church, through its approximately 1800 priests (including religious priests), tens of men and women religious and its lay faithful works with other institutions in the areas of the army, police, char ity and education.

The Catholic Church runs more than one hundred schools and educational institutions. Representatives of the Church participate in the management of three faculties of theology as well.

The Catholic Church consists of local churches (dioceses), which are further divided into parishes in individual municipalities and towns. Local churches create the Bohemian ecclesiastical province and the Moravian ecclesiastical province, headed by a metropolitan archbishop. The Greek-Catholic Church is active in the Czech Republic through an Apostolic exarchate.

The Czech Bishops’ Conference

The Czech Bishops’ Conference is made up of diocesan and auxiliary bishops of dioceses in both provinces together with Greek Catholic bishops. The Conference represents the entire Catholic Church in the Czech Republic.

The CBC was established after the creation of the Czech Republic on 30 March 1993 in accordance with the statutes approved by the Congregation for Bishops on 23 March 1993.

The CBC, established by the Apostolic See, is a group of bishops of the Czech Republic who jointly exercise certain pastoral functions for the Christian faithful of their territory in order to promote the greater good which the Church offers to humanity, especially through forms and programs of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of time and place, according to the norm of law (can. 447 CIC).

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Bishops

Bishop (from Greek epi-skopos, "supervisor") is a successor of the apostles and is given the sacrament of orders in full. By the episcopal ordination, bishop accepts the mission to sanctify, teach, and govern the people of God which is his diocese.

"In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 77)

"The individual bishops are the visible source and foundation of unity in their own particular Churches. As such, they exercise their pastoral office over the portion of the People of God assigned to them, assisted by priests and deacons. But, as a member of the episcopal college, each bishop shares in the concern for all the Churches. The bishops exercise this care first by ruling well their own Churches as portions of the universal Church, and so contributing to the welfare of the whole Mystical Body, which, from another point of view, is a corporate body of Churches." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 886)

Bishop can be:

  1. Diocesan, who is entrusted the care of the people of particular diocese:
    1. Resident Bishop, if he is a subject to metropolitan and his diocese is a part of some Church province,
    2. Exempt Bishop, if he doesn’t belong to any province and is a subject to the Holy See.
  2. Titular:
    1. Coadjutor Bishop, who possesses a right of succession,
    2. Auxiliary Bishop, who can or needn’t have any special privileges.
  3. Emeritus, if he lost his office by virtue of age or accepted resignation.
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Dioceses

"A diocese is a portion of the people of God which is entrusted to a bishop for him to shepherd with the cooperation of the presbyterium, so that, adhering to its pastor and gathered by him in the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes a particular church in which the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative." (Code of Canon Law, can. 369)

"Particular Church, which is the diocese (or eparchy), refers to a community of the Christian faithful in communion of faith and sacraments with their bishop ordained in apostolic succession." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 833)

In the Czech Republic, there are 2 ecclesiastical provinces with 8 dioceses and an Apostolic Exarchate.

The Province of Bohemia consists of:

The Province of Moravia consists of:

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Contact

Czech Bishop Conference (Ceska biskupska konference) Address: Thakurova 3 Praha 6, CZ-16000 Phone: +420 220 181 421 Fax: +420 224 310 144 E-mail: sekretariat@cirkev.cz
Spokesperson: Monika Klimentová Phone: +420 220 181 431 Cell: +420 731 625 984 E-mail: press@cirkev.cz