Official and underground: the survival strategy of the Catholic Church in Communist Czechoslovakia

ABSTRACT The paper examines the operation of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia under the Communist regime, one of the most oppressive communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and the choice of the Church to operate both officially and secretly. Based on the religious economy approach, it defines the conditions favoring diversified operation on both the legal market and the black market. Despite repression, the Church strived to maintain official operation in Czechoslovakia. Simultaneously, it developed an underground structure that allowed for uncompromised religious life. The case study confirms the theoretical predictions that severe repression favors underground operation without eliminating the need for the official presence of the Church. Beyond the religious economy approach, the paper points to the role of agency. The diversification strategy could only emerge and function due to the combination of externally imposed circumstances and individual initiative.


Introduction
Churches under an oppressive regime face different choices from those in a free society.Under communist rule, churches often fight for survival rather than compete with other religious groups.Existing scholarship has already reflected the situation of persecuted churches; however, many questions remain open.Also, the potential in the examination of former communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe has not been fully exploited.This paper aims to extend our understanding of persecuted churches by examining the survival strategy of the Catholic Church in Communist Czechoslovakia.
The issue of religious repression is topical, including the specific focus on communist regimes.Oppressive regulation of religion still exists around the world, and communist rule has not disappeared.It is alive and strong in China, North Korea, and Vietnam, and some kind of similar secularism may appear in the future.Communist oppression appears to be specific in its goals.The long-term goal is the elimination of religion, the 'opium of the people'.In the short run, the goals are control and the elimination of religious organizations.Churches are not only suppliers of religious services, but they also challenge the totalitarian claims of the communists.
Following the 'religious economy' approach, the issue of legal and illegal operation of the Church may be framed as a choice between operation in the official market, in the underground market or both.Previous literature in that tradition has described the dynamics of the legal and black markets in a heavily regulated religious economy. 8Furthermore, it has been suggested that simultaneous operation is beneficial if the demand for religion is heterogeneous and if the Church seeks to maximize the welfare of its members. 9However, the theory provides no clues about how the decision is made.Thus, this paper asks two questions: first, whether the dual operation is really a beneficial strategy the Church and its members (a response to the demand), and second, how the mode of operation is decided, particularly whether the dual operation is a top-down decision or a bottom-up initiative.
The organization of the paper is as follows.It starts with a brief review of the religious economy theory relevant to the religious markets under heavy regulation.Then, it presents the case of the Catholic Church in Communist Czechoslovakia: the anti-religious measures and the operation of the Church, both legal and illegal.The primary focus is on the dominant Roman Catholic Church, with brief remarks on the Eastern-rite Greek Catholic Church.The final part points to the role of individuals in the diversification process and evaluates the importance of general conditions and agency.

Religious markets and oppressive regulation
Religious economy is an analytical approach to the religious activities in a society.It views religion as a market phenomenon with supply and demand as the constitutive elements of the model.The approach has brought several important insights into the social scientific study of religion. 10It has also attracted substantial criticism from different perspectives. 11An important portion of the religious economy approach focuses on the effects of competition and regulation on the religiosity of the society.
The effect of religious monopoly and the regulation aiming to establish a monopoly has been repeatedly examined in the literature. 12However, less attention has been devoted to the regulation that seeks to eliminate religion as such; that is the kind of regulation that we observe in communist countries.Not only does the state back the official atheist doctrine, which would just add another competitor to the market, it also seeks to increase the costs of participation in any religion present in the market or to decrease the benefits of such participation.The topic of the religious market under communist rule has been previously examined by Fenggang Yang. 13ang defines triple markets that evolve under heavy regulation.First, there is the red market that 'comprises all legal (officially permitted) religious organizations, believers, and religious activities'. 14In the legal market the religious exchanges are carried out openly.However, the market is not equally open to all religious groups.The officially sanctioned religious organizations must comply with the commands of political authorities.Thus, the religious product offered in this market is likely not the one normally intended by the religious group; it is either watered down, or it has additives of communist elements.
Second, there is the black market which 'comprises all illegal (officially banned) religious organizations, believers, and religious activities'. 15The black-market exchanges are conducted underground in secrecy.This provides the religious organization more freedom in the formulation of its doctrine; however, the costs of underground operation are typically high.
Finally, the gray market 'comprises all religious and spiritual organizations, practitioners, and activities with ambiguous legal status'. 16Those are neither sanctioned nor prohibited by the state.Thus, they benefit from relative freedom compared to the red-market organization and from relatively lower costs compared to black-market groups.Yet the boundary between the black and the gray market can move as the state modifies its anti-religious policies.
Yang formulates three propositions regarding the triple markets under heavy regulation.First, 'to the extent that religious organizations are restricted in number and in operation, a black market will emerge despite high costs to individuals'. 17This can be interpreted as the consequence of individuals' preferences-if there are religionists who prefer to practice a prohibited religion despite the high costs, they will practice it.
Regarding the gray market, Yang proposes the following: 'To the extent that a red market is restrictive and a black market is suppressed, a gray market will emerge'. 18This is the market for the individuals who dislike the officially sanctioned religion but who are unwilling to bear the high costs of the black market.Furthermore, Yang proposes that 'the more restrictive and suppressive the regulation, the larger the gray market'. 19This means that religious services provided in the black and the gray markets are substitutes, and people do respond to the changes in relative prices or costs.The gray market is critically important for the survival of religion under communist rule, as it includes legally permitted religious leaders and individuals engaging in activities unwanted by the state.
I have previously developed a theory about the choice of a church between legal and illegal operation in response to oppressive regulation.A formal model, based on the assumption that the demand for religion is heterogeneous and that the church maximizes its adherents' welfare, shows that dual operation is often preferable to the church.The choice depends on the costs of religious participation imposed by the government and the set-up costs of dual operation.Dual operation is preferable where the 'red' religion significantly differs from what the church would do in the absence of the restrictions or what the adherents demand of it.The set-up costs include both the upfront costs of creating parallel structures and the costs of their maintenance, as well as the costs of a possible future merger. 20egal and illegal operation or the combination of the two are not discrete options.The church will strive to remain in the official market as long as the state permits it; the reason is to serve the cost-sensitive adherents that would otherwise seek substitutes elsewhere.Further, if the demand for religion is heterogeneous and there are those who prefer underground services despite the higher costs, it is advantageous for the church to operate in multiple markets.On the other hand, since diversification to multiple markets is costly itself, the church will operate in multiple markets only if the oppression is severe.Ultimately, the optimal mix of legal and illegal operation is a function of costs. 21o sum up, religious market theories predict that, under oppressive regulation, a religious market may split into multiple distinct markets.A church may choose to operate in one of those markets, or it may split to operate in multiple markets.The development of the different markets and the choice of the church of where to operate are functions of the severity of religious repression, among other things.The theories fit the situation in China and Central and Eastern Europe well. 22lthough the theories outlined above predict multiple markets and the diversified operation of churches, they provide very little explanation of the process leading to diversification.The role of individual agents appears crucial in that process, and it needs to be examined empirically.The countries of Central and Eastern Europe provide a lot of empirical material to study the behavior of religious groups, of religious leaders, and of adherents under oppressive regulation.The next section examines the case of Communist Czechoslovakia, where anti-religious repression was relatively tough, and the Catholic Church operated both legally and underground in response to Communist restriction.

Religious repression in Communist Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party seized power in Czechoslovakia gradually in a process that culminated at the end of February 1948.The Communists came to rule a religiously diverse country.Bohemia had already been considerably secularized at that time, possibly due to the history of religious conflicts (such as the Hussite Wars and the Wars of Religion), the interconnection of anticlericalism and Czech nationalism in the Austrian Empire, and the interwar Czechoslovakia and deportation of German Catholics, including hundreds of Catholic priests after 1945.Slovakia and Moravia were predominantly Catholic, and Catholicism had been an important part of national identity, especially for Slovaks.
On the other hand, the involvement of several Church officials in the politics of the fascist Slovak state during the war somewhat discredited the Catholic Church. 23he anti-religious policy of the Communist regime evolved over time with the evolution of the political regime itself.The coup of 1948 marks the beginning of the first and most brutal period, lasting through the 1950s.The initial period was followed by a relative increase of religious freedom in the late 1960s; this was a somewhat postponed reaction to Khrushchev's Thaw in the Soviet Union.The liberalization culminated in 1968, a period known as the Prague Spring, which ended with the Soviet military intervention of 1968.The Soviet intervention started another period, known as 'normalization', when the anti-religious campaign intensified again; however, it did not reach the extent and brutality of the Stalinist 1950s.Following Steven Pfaff's terminology, following the religious economy approach, the first period can be characterized as violent repression, the later as (severe) supply-side regulation and demand-side substitution. 24he measures employed in the initial period appear to aim at the destruction of churches while the policies implemented later seem to aim at controlling them.The anti-religious campaign included both supply-side measures targeting the churches and demand-side policies offering secular substitutes for religious teaching, rituals and socialization.It is not clear whether the change over time was due to a modification in policy goals (as an adjustment to a more realistic goal as the Communists realized that the elimination of religion would be either impossible or too costly in the short run), or whether the control of churches was the original goal, and the initial period only served to demonstrate the commitment of the Communists.However, those are questions beyond the scope of this paper.For our purpose, it suffices to note that the government policy imposed heavy costs on the legal operation of the churches in Czechoslovakia.
In the first year after seizing power, the Communists focused on separating the Catholic Church from the Holy See.The usual mode of negotiations, which were between the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Secretariat of State, was replaced with direct dealings between the Communist officials and the bishops.Diplomatic representation of the Holy See in Czechoslovakia was ended as all the diplomats were expelled on different pretexts.Parallel to that, and to put pressure on the bishops from below, the Communists orchestrated a movement of 'progressive Catholics' under the name of then-popular 'Catholic Action'.The movement was mostly based on laymen, although many priests were also forced to sign its declarations, and its aim was to create something like a 'national Catholic Church'.However, this schismatic attempt to create a red Catholic Church was not successful. 25he impact of Vatican diplomats on the development of local affairs is unclear.Nevertheless, the Holy See carefully followed the development in Czechoslovakia, and its 23 For more details, see Froese, op.cit. 24 reaction culminated in two decrees of The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office: the first, issued in June 1949, condemned the schismatic 'Catholic Action' in Czechoslovakia and excommunicated its members; the second, issued in July 1949, affirmed the excommunication of all willing supporters of communist parties.Although the excommunication could never have been fully applied in Czechoslovakia, the impact of the decrees was twofold.First, the Communist 'Catholic Action' could not succeed, and second, the decrees solidified the antagonism between the Church and the Communist state. 26ince the Catholic Church refused to subject itself to the control of the Communists, the government implemented severe anti-church policies.The anti-church campaign touched on different areas of religious life and targeted the Catholic Church in particular.The policies included the elimination and control of clergy and religious men and women, expropriation of the Church's property, and control over education, media and charitable organizations.Particular attention was given to the Eastern-rite Greek Catholic Church, which was forcefully merged with the Orthodox Church.
The most violent measures targeted the clergy. 27Most of the bishops were interned, and the control over dioceses was given to vicars capitular and vicars general, previously appointed with the consent of (and often pressure from) the Communist officials.The state also appointed its representatives to oversee the operations of bishops' offices.Bishops and many priests were sentenced in show trials and often imprisoned in labor camps. 28Monasteries and religious congregations were dismantled, and their members, both men and women, were interned in selected monasteries that also operated as labor camps.About one-fifth of the members of religious orders were sentenced to prison.The operation of religious orders was illegal until the of end of the communist era.
To reduce the autonomy of the Catholic Church, the Czechoslovak Communists confiscated most of its property and introduced state-paid salaries for the clergy.The process seemingly followed the previous policies of the state, such as the pre-war land reform and state subsidies given to the churches, although the obvious aim was to deprive the Catholic Church of its material base. 29The law also introduced the institute of 'state approval' as a condition for drawing salary; however, providing religious services without state approval was declared a criminal offence (named 'obstructing state supervision of churches').
The state also took control of the Church's outlets, such as schools, publishing houses and charities.In Slovakia, Church schools had already been nationalized by the end of World War II, and in the Czech lands, all Catholic schools were closed by 1950.Faculties of theology were excluded from universities, and only two Catholic faculties and seminaries were allowed to operate, one for Czechs and one for Slovaks.Catholic publishing was put under control; although the government allowed some books and papers to be published, they were censored by Communist officials.
The Communists also tried to differentiate among the clergy, creating organizations that would express positive attitudes towards the Communist regime.Besides several priests openly collaborating with the Communist government, there were two major 'patriotic' associations that could be classified to constitute the red-market church.The first was formed in 1950 as 'The Peace Movement of the Catholic Clergy' and ended with the thaw of 1968. 30The other was established in 1971 under the name 'The Association of Catholic Clergy Pacem in Terris', which was taken from the 1963 encyclical of John XXIII.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which was put under strict control, the Greek Catholic Church should have been destroyed completely.The Communist officials organized, with the help of collaborating clergy and laity, a false council ('sobor') that decided to 'reunite' the Church with the Russian Orthodox Church.Thus, the Greek Catholic Church should have been separated from the Vatican, and its members should have acquired a more pro-Russian attitude.Greek Catholic bishops Vasil Hopko and Pavol Peter Gojdič were sentenced to prison.The latter was offered a release from prison if he were to have consented to the merger with the Orthodox Church; he refused and was tortured to death in 1960.Since most of the Greek Catholics resided in the eastern part of Slovakia, priests who refused to convert to Orthodoxy were relocated to western parts of Bohemia, far from their parishioners. 31fter 1960, the Communist policy changed, focusing more on control rather than violent repression. 32The state made several concessions to the Church in response to the new Vatican's Ostpolitik, 33 including approval of the ordination of several bishops. 30Pavol Jakubčin provides details on the communist idea of 'patriotic' priests, the operation of 'The Peace Movement of the Catholic Clergy' and the differentiated approach to the Catholic priests in Slovakia in Pavol Jakubčin, On the other hand, the government continued to decrease (in real terms) the salaries of the clergy, limited the number of seminarians, refused to legalize religious orders, and continued to censor the Catholic press.Until the end of the 1980s, the Communist state enforced the institute of state approval, thus keeping the ministry of openly anti-Communist clergy illegal.Things turned better for the Greek Catholics in 1968.Following the increasing pressure from the priests and church members, stimulated by the general liberalization in the society as well as the particular recognition of oriental Catholic Churches by the Second Vatican Council, the state legalized operation of the Greek Catholic Church in June 1968.Although the reconstitution of the Church was not easy, especially due to the conflicts with the Russian Orthodox Church, the legalization significantly improved the situation of the Greek Catholics. 34e Catholic Church and the different religious markets

The official market
The Catholic Church never ceased to operate legally in Czechoslovakia.After the Communist coup d'état of 1948, bishops tried to negotiate acceptable conditions that would allow the Church to survive and to serve its adherents.Even during the most brutal period of oppression, the Communist regime did not prevent the operation of the Catholic Church altogether.The clergy at all levels sought ways to deal with the regime officials in a way that would allow legal operation to continue.Also, the lay members of the Church would choose legally offered services, such as religious instruction in public schools to demonstrate their faith and loyalty to the Church.The official activities are both red and gray, the former being sanctioned by the regime, the latter being tolerated or overlooked.
The Church was aware of the anti-Catholic attitudes of the Communists, yet it attempted to negotiate with the state.As the state disregarded the official, diplomatic mode of negotiation between the government and the Holy See, the bishops dealt directly with the Communist government and party officials.When the parliament elected the head of the Communist party Klement Gottwald to be the new Czechoslovak president in June 1948, the Archbishop of Prague Josef Beran celebrated the traditional Te Deum mass.However, he immediately issued a proclamation that the Church did not embrace the ideology of the new regime. 35he negotiations were not successful as the state constantly moved forward against the Church.The negotiations finally broke down when the bishops found a covert listening device at their meeting in March 1949 and, subsequently, in June 1949, they issued a pastoral letter exposing the repression of the Church in various areas.This was combined with the decrees of the Holy See against the schismatic 'Catholic Action' and Communism. 36s the Communist government began to move more aggressively against the bishops and the clergy in late 1949, the Church tried to maintain at least the option of providing basic religious services.For that reason, it could not allow the complete removal of the clergy.Although the bishops refused the state-paid salaries and refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Communist state, they instructed the priests to accept the salaries and to take the oath.Most priests followed those instructions.On the other hand, the bishops maintained a strict position against the priests openly collaborating with the Communists.
The removal of the bishops through internment and imprisonment created a practical problem regarding the administration of dioceses.In line with the cannon law, the duties of bishops were assumed by the vicars capitular.Those were priests loyal to the Communist government and acting according to the instructions of the government officials, yet the Church accepted that those priests would administer the dioceses. 37For a long time, the Holy See also refused to promote the vicars to ordinary bishops' positions.Only in 1973, after the death of several bishops, the Holy See approved the ordination of some of the vicars.
The red market is best represented by the priests collaborating with the Communists.However, it is not easy to establish the criteria that defined collaboration.Membership in patriotic associations, first 'The Peace Movement of Catholic Clergy' and later 'The Association of Catholic Clergy Pacem in Terris', could be some such criteria.However, the motives for membership differed among the priests-some of them openly supported the Communists, some joined because they feared the consequences of refusal, some were blackmailed by the secret police, and some were lured by the benefits offered by the Communist officials.Membership itself did not mean open support for the Communist policies, and many priests joined only to avoid persecution, so they could continue in their ministry.About one-third of Czech and one-quarter of Slovak priests joined 'Pacem in Terris' in the 1970s, but the numbers dropped significantly after 1982 when Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Prague, František Tomášek, prohibited membership in the movement. 38eligious instruction is another activity where the Church strived to stay in the official market.Following the previous tradition of religious instruction in public schools, the Communist government forbade such instruction elsewhere, so that it could have control over it as well as to put pressure on parents not to enroll their children in religious classes.Well over 90% of children were enrolled in the early 1950s; however, by 1956 the number had fallen to 48% and by 1967 to 24%, with significant regional disparities.With the thaw of 1968, the enrollment in religious classes doubled, only to fall again in the 'normalization' period of the 1970s to 5% in Czechia and 20% in Slovakia. 39epending on the position of the instructor, the classes could be classified as either 37 In an early case, in the Slovak diocese of Banská Bystrica, the Vicar Capitular, J. Dechet, was appointed by the government in January 1950.The vicar elected according to the cannon law was not recognized by the state as he did not have previous consent from the government.Initially, Dechet was excommunicated and had no ecclesiastical powers over the diocese.To solve the situation, the administration of the diocese was assumed by E. Nécsey, Bishop of Nitra, who validated all Dechet's decisions.A year later, the excommunication was cancelled, and Dechet was elected vicar capitular according to cannon law, remaining in office until 1968.This case demonstrates the willingness of the Church to step back in order to maintain the function of the official structure.After that experience, the Communists were more careful about choosing an acceptable vicar capitular in advance.However, it would be unfair to state that all the vicars capitular were collaborating with the Communists (Vaško, Dům na skále 1, op. cit., pp.173-182; Balík and Hanuš, op.cit., pp.79-86). 38Balík and Hanuš, op.cit., pp.131-149. 39Ibid., pp.218-220.
red or gray market activity; typically, it would be the latter, since parents would not bear high costs to obtain 'red' instruction for their children.
A similar conclusion can be drawn regarding the education of priests.The two official seminaries allowed and controlled by the Communists provided training that was definitely not in line with the intentions of the Church.In the initial period, many students of the dismantled pre-Communist seminaries refused to transfer to the newly formed institutes (many of them completed their training and were ordained secretly), and the Communists even campaigned to have new students enrolled in the new seminaries in order to establish some reputation for them.On the other hand, at least some of the instructors in those seminaries sincerely tried to maintain adequate training for the seminarians.Thus, even within those red, officially sanctioned institutes, there were activities that belonged to the gray market.
Members of the Greek Catholic Church faced a distinct problem.The Church was officially non-existent, parishes were merged with the Russian Orthodox Church, and some priests converted while others were banned from ministering officially and often relocated to Bohemia, far from their parishioners residing in the east of Slovakia.Apart from clandestine religious activity, there were two other options for the Greek Catholics.They could either attend services in the Orthodox Church, or they could convert to the Roman Catholic Church.Communist officials reported that about 60% to 70% of ('former') Greek Catholics attended Orthodox services in the mid-1960s; however, Pešek and Barnovský consider those numbers biased and note that a significant part of those converts only accepted the merger with the Orthodox Church unwillingly, and often as a temporary matter.About one-third of Greek Catholics attended Roman Catholic services. 40inally, the diplomatic contacts between the Communist government and the Holy See represent a major effort on the part of the Church to stay in the official market.Vatican diplomacy backed the official presence of the Church, sometimes even at the expense of worsening the position of the underground structures.One possible interpretation is that Vatican diplomats distrusted the underground Church as a vehicle for the survival of religion.One may only speculate whether it was due to scarce and often distorted information about the religious situation in Czechoslovakia, the irregular nature of the underground structures, or the misconduct that took place in the underground Church. 41Although the Vatican Ostpolitik was viewed with skepticism by many 40 Pešek and Barnovský, Pod kuratelou moci, op.cit., pp.149-150.From the earlier period, the mid-1950s, there is only a report from one region, where about one half of the Greek Catholics attended Roman Catholic services while roughly one quarter accepted Orthodox practice, and one quarter attended clandestine Greek Catholic services, although the attendance of Roman Catholic churches was likely lower in other regions (ibid., p. 53).Pešek and Barnovský also report that some Greek Catholic priests ministered in the Orthodox Church after the merger and returned to the Greek Catholic Church after 1968 (ibid., p. 204). 41Casaroli never mentions the Czechoslovak underground Church in his memoirs (Il martirio della pazienza, op.cit.) except as an issue raised by Czechoslovak diplomats.According to archival documents reviewed by Kaplan (Těžká cesta, op.cit., pp.72-84), secret bishops and emigrants were discussed in the meetings; Vatican diplomats were not supportive of the underground Church and referred to it as a remnant of a previous period that the Church had to absorb, and some emigrants were called 'troublemakers' for both the state and the Holy See.Such rhetoric could have been used to elicit concessions elsewhere, especially to receive permission to appoint official bishops.Ondřej Liška reports that Vatican diplomat John Bukovsky met some of the secret bishops in 1976, upon which they were forbidden to act as bishops by the Holy See.Two years later, the decision was repealed for Bishops Ján C. Korec and Petr Dubovský (Liška, Církev v podzemí a společenství Koinótés, Tišnov: Sursum, 1999, pp.114-117).Petr Fiala and Jiří Hanuš also report that Davídek was forbidden to consecrate, but disrespected the instruction (Petr Fiala and Jiří Hanuš, Skrytá církev: Felix M. Davídek a společenství Koinótés, Brno: CDK, 1999, p. 132).
Czechoslovak Catholics, one cannot deny the positive role played by some of the official hierarchy, especially Archbishop Tomášek.

The black market
The underground structure of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia emerged as an immediate response to the Communist takeover.Especially in Slovakia, the foundations of the underground Church were laid well before the Communist coup d'état of 1948.Lay initiatives were backed by the creation of an underground clerical hierarchy including secretly ordained bishops.Later, the structures were reinforced by clergy and laity imprisoned in the early stages of the regime and released from prison during the thaw of the 1960s.
The Communist coup of 1948 did not find the Church completely unprepared, but few anticipated the extent of the oppression.Especially in Slovakia, Catholics had already started to prepare to function illegally during World War II.This was mostly the work of Croatian Jesuit Tomislav Kolaković who started a movement of Catholic laymen inspired by then-popular Catholic Action.As he expected the persecution of the Catholic Church upon the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet troops, he established an informal organization, the Rodina ('Family'), which was trained to operate clandestinely if needed. 42No such activities have been observed in the Czech lands; however, many Catholics had experienced oppression under the Nazi occupation, including some bishops and priests being sent to Nazi concentration camps.Catholics were also involved in clandestine warfare during the war.
The Catholic Church began to establish the underground clerical structure as early as 1948.Initially, several bishops were ordained as 'backups' for active bishops who could have been prevented from properly performing their religious and administrative duties.Also, the Church in communist countries obtained special permissions, dubbed 'Mexican faculties', that should have helped to minister in extraordinary circumstances. 43t is unclear whether those faculties included permission to ordain bishops without the prior approval of the Holy See, but they probably did not. 44 and arresting the newly ordained bishops, this process created an important stock of underground domestic bishops. 45ommunist oppression generated three types of underground priests.First, there were the priests who had been ordained before the Communist coup, who opposed the regime and often spent the initial period in prisons and labor camps; they could not get state approval later and were forced to minister clandestinely.Second, there were priests who had been officially ordained under Communist rule but who lost state approval later.Third, many priests were ordained secretly, either by domestic secret bishops or by foreign bishops, typically German or Polish.That was the case of religious priests especially.The extent of the underground clergy can be estimated by comparing the official statistics of the Catholic Church and the state (see Figure 1); interestingly, a significant part of the underground Church was unaccounted for even in the Vatican data. 46oughly one-quarter of the Catholic clergy ministered illegally in the 1980s.
The repressions of the 1950s weakened the official Church but also provided opportunities for the growth and strengthening of the underground.Numerous priests, seminarians, religious men and women, as well as laymen were sentenced to prisons and labor camps in multiple show trials. 47Catholic priests and members of religious orders were particularly well equipped to sustain imprisonment as they had lived in celibacy and asceticism.They were also regarded as moral authorities by lay prisoners; thus, to prevent unwanted influence over them, clerics were often kept together and separated from others.That helped to maintain religious life in prisons and camps.Many of the prisoners turned their sentence into an opportunity to strengthen their spiritual life, to further their education (or complete the formation in the case of the seminarians), and to network. 48utside the prisons, secret priestly ordinations also helped to maintain active priests, especially members of religious orders that were able to complete formation of candidates outside of the officially sanctioned seminaries.
The Greek Catholic Church had also built an underground structure.Many priests refused the 'reunification' with the Russian Orthodox Church and ministered clandestinely.Besides providing religious services, underground priests strived to maintain the 45 The first generation of secret bishops was ordained by the official bishops and with the prior approval of the Holy See  46 The sharp increase in the number of religious priests is mostly explained by the official appearance of the secretly ordained priests.It does not mean that all underground priests were religious.Some diocesan priests declared belonging to (previously secret) religious orders or institutes, while some secretly ordained secular priests appeared in the official statistics; thus, the drop in the number of diocesan priests is insignificant.Also, a small number of religious priests arrived from abroad (both exiled Czechoslovak citizens and foreigners). 47The trials are well described by Václav Vaško in Dům na skále 2, op.cit., and Dům na skále 3, op.cit. 48Jan Synek, Svobodni v nesvobodě: Náboženský život ve věznicích v období komunistického režimu (Praha: Vyšehrad and ÚSTR, 2013).
religious identity of the Greek Catholics and petitioned the Communist officials to legalize the Church again.Some of the clergy, religious men and women, and laity were sentenced to prison for their illegal activities, particularly the group around priest Ivan Ljavinec, a coordinator of the underground activity in the mid-1950s.To a lesser extent, the activity of the underground Greek Catholic Church continued even after the legalization of the Church in 1968. 49he thaw of the 1960s brought an opportunity to restructure the underground Church for the next period.Combined with the impetus of the Second Vatican Council, the Church was being revived both underground and aboveground.Still, Communist control, especially the institution of state approval, prevented the disappearance of the underground.Nevertheless, the thaw intensified the relations between the official and the underground Church.An important link was the newly appointed Archbishop of Prague Tomášek, secretly ordained as a bishop in 1949 and officially installed in 1965 as a compromise candidate for the Church and the state. 50n the period spanning the 1970s and 1980s, known as 'normalization', the underground Church was already well enough organized to operate under Communist rule.Also, the repression was less brutal than in the 1950s.The underground Church was able to provide religious services, education, literature, and a community of likeminded people, mostly without major collisions with the authorities.However, several operations were conducted by the secret police against religious orders, and many individuals were harassed by the Communist authorities, expelled from schools or forced to accept menial jobs, even if educated.Members of the underground Church were also able to maintain connections out of the country, mostly through emigrants who provided information and religious literature published abroad.
The underground Church was not a single organization; rather, it was a conglomerate of different groups and movements.One of them, the Koinótés group led by Felix M. Davídek, deserves particular attention.Davídek obtained Episcopal ordination in 1967 in a dubious way and established a massive clerical structure based on his episcopal and priestly ordinations. 51Koinótés acted independently from the official Church, building on the paranoid sentiments of the underground and Davídek's charisma.The group, at least in part, became very unorthodox in regard both to doctrine and to discipline, with married priests and bishops, priestly ordinations of women, and the refusal to obey the instructions of the Holy See.Davídek demanded that he only submit to direct instructions from the Pope. 52With the scarce information available to the Holy See, it was difficult to discern the different groups, and the activities of Davídek and Koinótés cast the whole underground Church in Czechoslovakia in a bad light; that might explain the cautious stance of the Vatican diplomats towards the underground Church as such.
Despite the many challenges, the underground Church proved to be viable and capable of safeguarding religious life against Communist oppression.Three major events of the 1980s testify to the strength of the underground Church. 53The first was the 1985 pilgrimage to Velehrad to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the death of St. Methodius, one of the 'apostles to the Slavs'.About 150 thousand people gathered there, including members of prohibited orders dressed in their habits, booing the Communist speakers, and cheering the Pope's legate Agostino Casaroli; the Communist plan for a 'peace festival' was turned into a truly religious event. 54hile the Velehrad pilgrimage could have been viewed as a purely religious event, the other two events were more political.The second major event was the 1988 petition for religious freedom.Started by a single Catholic layman, Augustin Navrátil, a peasant, the petition was signed by more than 500 thousand people.The petition also received support from the official Church, particularly the Archbishop of Prague Tomášek; however, most signatures were collected by members of the underground Church. 5551 Davídek was a priest ordained in 1945 and imprisoned between 1950 and 1964.Upon being released from prison, he organized underground theological education and the formation of candidates for priesthood.He sought episcopal ordination so that he could ordain the candidates; however, secret Bishop Dubovský refused him this.His companions also sought episcopal ordination abroad (e.g. from emigrant Slovak Bishop Hnilica), but they were also refused.Ultimately, Jan Blaha, Davídek's close collaborator, elicited ordination from Dubovský, only to ordain Davídek the next day.The ordination of Davídek was never recognized as permitted or valid by the Church.Davídek ordained dozens of priests, including married men (formally for the Eastern-rite Greek Catholic Church, but Davídek was not authorized to do that, and the form was also defective), 15 bishops, and even women.Episcopal ordinations were never recognized by the Church, priestly ordinations of men (not women) were viewed dubious, and the priests who wanted to minister after 1989 were required to accept ordination sub conditione.The third event was the 'Candle Demonstration' in Bratislava organized by several laymen from the underground Church in March of 1988.Despite the risks associated with attending such an event, several thousand Slovaks gathered in the city to pray for religious freedom; the participants were attacked by the police with batons and water cannons, and many were arrested.The demonstration was the largest opposition gathering since the late 1960s. 56e role of individuals in the process of diversification The story of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia is in line with the theories of multiple religious markets under oppression and the advantages of the diversification strategy.The Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was relatively tough compared to those in neighboring countries. 57Yet the simple fact that conditions in Czechoslovakia were conducive to diversified operation does not explain how and why such operation emerged.The theories of religious markets largely overlook the role of agency.
The role of individuals appears crucial both for the continuation of official operation and for the establishment of the underground Church.This is true of both the clergy and the laity.Regarding the hierarchic nature of the Catholic Church, it is interesting to study the role of the individuals in different religious activities and the interplay between individual initiative and the hierarchical structure of the Church.Hierarchical organization is not an unimportant characteristic of the Catholic Church; it is necessary to meet its doctrinal structure. 58he continuation of the official operation of the Church was primarily subject to the decision of clergy, particularly the bishops.From the beginning, the episcopate in Czechoslovakia attempted to maintain the conditions for legal ministry, even with severe concession to the Communist authorities.Thus, the bishops agreed to the state-paid salaries, taking the oath of loyalty to the state, and the interference of the government in ecclesiastical appointments.Based on their personal conduct and the consequences that they suffered, one cannot see their behavior as opportunistic in any way; rather, their activities seem motivated by the concern for maintaining religious services for the Catholic adherents. 59The bishops openly confronted the government on the most crucial issues, such as the schismatic 'Catholic Action' and the excommunication of the most prominent patriotic priests, and they sought compromise wherever it was possible.
The patriotic associations of the clergy are another part of the official operation of the Church.While the intention of the Communist officials was to establish a party-controlled red Church, very few priests fully collaborated toward that goal.The most prominent red priests, such as the first chair of 'The Peace Movement of Catholic Clergy' Josef Plojhar, who also served as Minister of Health in the Communist cabinet, or Josef Beneš, the Secretary General of that organization, quickly lost any credit among the Catholics. 6056 Doellinger, Turning prayers into protest, op.cit., pp.158-164. 57Minarik, 'Religious markets under heavy regulation', op.cit. 58Douglas W. Allen, 'Order in the Church: A Property Rights Approach', Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 27:1 (1995), pp.97-117. 59See note 28 on the measures against the individual bishops. 60Balík and Hanuš present an interesting case where the parishioners of Bludov, a Czech village, boycotted a 'patriotic' priest who was installed to replace their imprisoned parish priest.The parishioners attended services in surrounding villages, where they also celebrated baptisms and weddings.The patriotic priest gave up in two years and requested to be relocated to another parish (Balík and Hanuš, op.cit., p. 126).
Since the Communists were able to elicit membership in the associations but not a pro-Communist action, most of the activity of the associations remained rather formal.For that reason, the Church officials did not move very strictly against the patriotic priests, except for the most prominent representatives of the patriotic movement.Plojhar was excommunicated by Archbishop Beran, who refused to recall the excommunication regardless of the pressure from the Communists; it was one of the major battles between the Church and the state in the initial period.On the other hand, when Pope John Paul II forbade membership in the 'Pacem in Terris' association in 1982, clergymen remaining in its membership, including two bishops collaborating with the Communists, were not punished in any way. 61he role of individuals is even more prominent in the establishment of the underground Church.Its foundations were clearly laid by the bottom-up initiatives of individual people, such as Vladimír Jukl and Silvester Krčméry, followers of Kolakovič, and secretly ordained Slovak bishops from the Jesuit order, particularly Ján C. Korec and Moravian priest Felix M. Davídek.The role of individuals, such as Ivan Ljavinec, is also clearly visible in the activities of the underground Greek Catholic Church.All those individuals were organizing their activities without any explicit instructions from the Church hierarchy, even if they tried to maintain the links with the rest of the Church.
The position of the Vatican is ambiguous.On the one hand, it appears that the Holy See allowed for the creation of the underground hierarchy by granting the so-called 'Mexican faculties'.Even if there were serious doubts regarding the approval of secret episcopal ordinations, Vatican authorities at least ex post accepted the ordination of the underground bishops. 62Without those bishops, the underground Church could hardly have functioned.Also, emigrant clergy, especially the secretly ordained Bishop Hnilica, helped to maintain communication between the underground and the Vatican.
On the other hand, Church authorities appear to have had a suspicious view of the underground activities.Especially before the period of John Paul II, who had personal experience with the Communists, Vatican officials and diplomats had a rather imprecise understanding of the situation behind the Iron Curtain.For a short period of time, the underground bishops were ordered to refrain from their activities by Vatican diplomats as diplomacy strived to revive the official Church. 63t is important to note that red-black distinction does not define the whole function of the Church in Czechoslovakia; many activities must be labeled as gray.Legally ministering clergy often did more than what was approved by the Communist officials.Also, some individuals gradually changed their positions.The most prominent example is Archbishop Tomášek.After his episcopal ordination without any approval from the state, he accepted the position of parish priest, not acting as a bishop even secretly.He was promoted to the Archbishop of Prague as a 'compromise candidate'.That is, the Communists did not see him as a threat.In that position, he gradually changed, and he began to meet with the members of the underground, to confront the Communist authorities, and to support underground activities, such as the 1988 petition.His personal stance was an important element turning the Church into an openly oppositional force against the Communists. 64 The underground Church was not an acceptable substitute for the official Church to everyone.Vocations to priesthood may serve as an illustration of that point.The Communist regime limited the number of seminarians in the two legal seminaries existing before 1989.For those who had not been admitted (or refused the compromised teaching in those seminaries), the underground Church would have offered a substitute.However, many would not accept that offer, and they would rather suppress the desire to become priests.Only when the regime collapsed was the demand for new priests renewed.This is well demonstrated by the sharp increase in the number of newly ordained priests in the late 1990s in Slovakia, although it was not so pronounced in Czechia (see Figure 2). 65hose who entered the official seminary were not automatically willing to accept Communist control.This is well demonstrated by a hunger strike organized in the Slovak seminary in 1980.The students protested the interference of 'Pacem in Terris', and 120 out of 147 students joined the strike.Six were expelled as a result; an additional 11 seminarians were expelled for protesting the expulsion.However, seminarians had also been expelled before.In the 1970s, some were expelled for copying forbidden literature.Gray and black activities existed even within a red-controlled institution. 66n important part of the underground activity was organized by the laity.The best examples of such initiatives are the 1988 petition and the Candle Demonstration.Both activities were started by laymen, Augustín Navrátil in the former case, and František 64 Weigel, op.cit., pp.177-180; Balík and Hanuš, op.cit., pp.96-98. 65The increase did not follow immediately after 1990 since the standard preparation for priesthood takes six years, and it took some time to create capacities for seminarians.The modest post-2000 increase can be attributed to demographic development; a strong cohort was born in the late 1970s in Czechoslovakia due to the pro-population policies of the government.In Czechia, the increase was distributed over a longer period and shifted to later years; this corresponds to the higher age of Czech seminarians who often only start their preparation for priesthood after graduating from university.Generally, the difference between Czechia and Slovakia corresponds to the difference in religiosity between the two countries. 66Ján Šimulčík, Zápas o svedomie: hladovka študentov bohosloveckej fakulty v roku 1980 (Prešov: Vydavateľstvo Michala Vaška, 2001).
Mikloško and Ján Čarnogurský, followers of Jukl and Krčméry, and others in the latter.Both activities were initially built on the social networks developed among the laity, and only later could they achieve official support or be announced by the media, such as Radio Vaticana and Voice of America. 67ll these examples show that personal initiative was an important element in building the diversified Church structure.The process was bottom-up rather than top-down; the initiative came from the laity and the lower clergy and was eventually backed by the hierarchy and the Vatican.Yet this does not mean that the conditions are irrelevant or that only agency matters; the Church officials would hardly accept such organizational innovations under normal circumstances.Thus, both the personal initiative and the external conditions were necessary to create a diversified structure.

Conclusion
Communist rule created a peculiar situation for the operation of churches in Central and Eastern Europe.Churches adopted various strategies to survive under communist repression.In some countries they operated legally, and in others they survived underground.The case of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia is interesting as the Church worked both openly and clandestinely.This peculiar model of operation can be attributed both to the conditions imposed by the Communists, that is, the severity of oppression, and to the initiatives of specific individuals.
The conditions for legal ministry were stringent in Czechoslovakia.Yet there is no evidence that the Church would consider going underground altogether.The underground Church was conceived as an alternative for some Catholics, but not all.Also, the relations between the official and the underground hierarchy were uneasy from time to time.Hierarchical organization is particularly important to the Catholic Church to meet its doctrinal structure; however, such organizational form is far from ideal for clandestine operation. 68Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary reactions.
There were both advantages and disadvantages to both legal and illegal operations.The official Church served the more cost-sensitive population at the expense of a compromise with the government.The underground Church provided services to those who demanded uncompromised observance despite the high costs of participation.The case of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia shows that, at least sometimes, it is possible to diversify and operate on multiple markets.Also, the Czechoslovak experience documents the heterogeneity of the demand since both branches of the Church had their patrons.
The Czechoslovak case documents the role of agency.Conditions favorable to diversification would not be enough to create a diversified operation.Throughout the period of Communist rule, there were individuals who believed in the importance of both legal and underground operation; those individuals worked to maintain both branches of the Church.The process was spontaneous, without any hierarchical coordination that is so 67 Pešek and Barnovský, V zovretí normalizácie, op.cit., pp.144-151. 68The failure to maintain the hierarchy also resulted in doctrinal and disciplinary problems, especially in the case of the Koinótés group (e.g. the ordination of married men as priests and bishops and the priestly ordination of women).There are different views on the activities of Davídek and Koinótés.While Liška (op.cit.) presents a rather critical position, which is in line with the dominant view of the Catholic officials, Fiala and Hanuš (op.cit.) present a more favorable view.However, even Fiala and Hanuš acknowledge some problems associated with the ordination of women and the consecration of bishops (see pp. 87-91 and 102-110).
typical for the Catholic Church.Yet the strategy worked, and the Church survived and even thrived despite the Communists' anti-religious efforts.Finally, the case shows the need to develop both macro-and micro-level theories to account for societal processes.While the macro-perspective is developed quite well within the 'religious economy' approach, the micro-perspective has been neglected. 69ince it is clear that the role of individuals is crucial for collective movements, more effort is needed in that direction.
However, it was established as a rule among Slovak Jesuits to have one active bishop and one 'backup' in the case of the imprisonment of the first.Since the Communists were quite successful in revealing 42 Stjepan Tomislav Poglajen, better known as Tomislav Kolaković, was a Croatian Jesuit priest and a professor of sociology and moral theology in Sarajevo.He fled Croatia in 1941 in fear of the fascist regime and moved to Slovakia in 1943 with the intention of going to the Soviet Union.Kolaković established the Rodina as a network of independent circles of laymen, typically college students and young professionals.The network had a hierarchical organization where only the top-level circles knew the overall structure; Kolaković also ordered the members to memorize membership lists and to destroy them upon the arrival of the Soviet army.Kolaković also established contacts with Czech Catholics after the war; however, he was forced to leave Czechoslovakia in 1946 after a short imprisonment by the police who had already been infiltrated by the Communists.See Miroslav Klobučník, 'Kolakovičova aféra a pravda o nej' in Moderný evanjelizátor 20.storočia profesor Kolakovič a jeho žiak Anton Neuwirth a ich posolstvo mladej generácii (Bratislava: ZKS, 2006), pp.31-77.By 1945, the Rodina had about 500 members dispersed in towns and villages throughout Slovakia (Doellinger, 'Prayers, Pilgrimages and Petitions', op.cit., p. 220).The development of Rodina and the Slovak underground are also summarized in Doellinger, Turning Prayers Into Protests, op.cit., pp.35-47.
43The term 'Mexican faculties' is used for a set of dispensations granted to priests and bishops that allow them to independently perform acts that would otherwise require the approval of their superiors.Such dispensations were first granted to the Mexican clergy by Pope Pius XII during the persecution of the Catholic Church in the 1920s.See Eva Vybíralová, 'Mimořádné fakulty v Československu v letech 1948-1989', Revue církevního práva, 25:2 (2019), pp.43-62; Liška, op.cit., p. 21; Corley, 'The Secret Clergy'. 44Vybíralová, op.cit.
(Kajetán Matoušek, František Tomášek and Štefan Barnáš in 1949, Ladislav Hlad and Karel Otčenášek in 1950, Pavol Hnilica in 1951).As the Communist regime learnt about the ordinations, the secret bishops were interned (all but Matoušek), and later, from the 1960s on, they had only been allowed to serve as ordinary priests.Tomášek was appointed as the Archbishop of Prague in 1977 (previously, in 1965, as an apostolic administrator of the Prague Diocese) and as a compromise candidate of the Communist government and the Holy See; Matoušek could officially serve as bishop between 1969 and 1970, and then only after 1988; Otčenášek was officially appointed only after the 1989 revolution.In Slovakia, a line of ordination developed within the Jesuit order in the following way: in 1951, Hnilica ordained Jan C. Korec and emigrated soon afterwards.In 1955, just before he was arrested, Korec had ordained Dominik Kaľata.Kaľata was arrested in 1960, but he was released soon after (only to be arrested again later) and ordained Peter Dubovský in 1961.In 1967 Dubovský ordained Jan Blaha, who was not a Jesuit but a member of the Koinótés group discussed below.See Liška, op.cit., pp.21-24, Vaško, Dům na skále 2, op.cit., pp.335-338, and Balík and Hanuš, op.cit., pp.67-71.Korec and Dubovský were officially appointed after the 1989 revolution.Hnilica and Kaľata emigrated and served as bishops abroad.