c. 1999 Religion News Service

PRAGUE, Czech Republic _ At an Easter service, 40 young adults are baptized at a Roman Catholic church. At a shrine to St. Jude, worshippers flow in throughout the day, bringing their pleas to this patron saint of desperate causes.

Such simple signs of religious life would hardly be remarkable in neighboring Eastern European countries from Poland to Croatia, where Christianity has grown in prestige since the fall of atheistic communism a decade ago.

But these scenes are eye-catching in Prague. Contrary to the initial impression given by the magnificent Baroque churches in this spired city, the Czechs comprise one of the most secular societies on earth. Communism may have ended here with the nonviolent Velvet Revolution _ whose 10th anniversary will be celebrated Nov. 17 _ but the granting of full religious liberties has done little to draw Czechs back to church.

Even in famously skeptical countries like France, most people claim at least some nominal religious affiliation. But 47 percent of Czechs claim no belief at all and another 35 percent only weak religious beliefs, according to a 1998 survey by the Czech polling agency STEM.

Only 6 percent of Czechs attends worship services weekly, compared to 46 percent of Poles and 41 percent of Americans. The contrast is striking with Slovakia, the eastern half of the former Czechoslovakia, which split peacefully in 1993. Eighty-one percent of Slovaks are Christians (69 percent Catholic) and only 16 percent nonbelievers. Only Latvia and the former East Germany can rival the Czechs’ atheism, said the Rev. Tomas Halik, a Roman Catholic priest and chairman of the religion department at Prague’s Charles University.

Czechs take their irreligion so much for granted they’re hard-pressed to explain why. Often no one in their family, except perhaps an eccentric grandparent, ever went to church.”I just cannot believe in the existence of God. Maybe it has to do with being in technical studies,”said Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova, a researcher in computational linguistics at Charles University.

Scholars say that a history of Enlightenment rationalism, religious warfare and communist persecution have combined to make religion largely a thing of the past in a land once legendary for its Catholic saints, Protestant reformers and Jewish scholars.

But even in a godless land, small kernels of spirituality can be found.”I’m not a natural atheist,”said Monika Vlkova, a 33-year-old theater student in Prague who describes herself as a”grown-up convert from an atheistic family.” Vlkova began exploring religion as a teen-ager. First she became what Czechs call a”something-ist,”believing vaguely in some greater being but not in any church institution. But she resolved those doubts and was baptized a Catholic in 1998.

Such cases are far from rare, said Halik, who baptizes dozens of adult converts every Easter at the university’s Holy Savior Church in Prague.”This `something-ness’ is most people’s religion in the Czech Republic,”he said. Czechs are not hard-core atheists, he said. If asked whether they believed in God, most would likely say `Yes, butâÂ?¦’ or `No, butâÂ?¦’.” Reflecting this ambiguity is Vaclav Havel, the writer-president who led the Velvet Revolution. Havel has rejected his childhood Catholic faith, but he still loads his speeches with spiritual overtones, calling for”respect to the order of existence”and”a recovery of the human spirit and human responsibility.” Vaclav Maly, a former dissident who is now auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop of Prague, said most Czechs who convert to Christianity tend to be well-educated urban dwellers. But”we must be very realistic,”Maly said.”We are a minority … unlike in Poland.” About 44 percent of Czechs are Catholic, 7 percent Protestant and 1 percent members of other religions. Those who do return to church don’t always embrace traditional beliefs.

Vera Klatova, 32, of Prague, attends Catholic Mass weekly but doesn’t go forward for the Eucharist.”I feel there is some kind of truth in it,”she said.”I can’t accept it as a whole.” A mixture of village piety and modern”something-ism”can be found at a 258-year-old sandstone statue of St. Jude, standing in a courtyard off Prague’s busy Square of the Republic. To a backdrop of squealing streetcars and department store announcements, worshippers utter prayers, lay flowers and light votive candles.

Kveta Vanicka, 68, has been coming here for 50 years:”Every Wednesday,”she said.”I’ve always just cried out whatever I needed.” Katerina, a fashionably dressed woman in her 20s, has been visiting the shrine for about four years, though she has never been baptized.”I know I just need to help myself, but it gives me strength,”she said.

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Czech skepticism toward religious institutions traces back to medieval reformer Jan Hus, who denounced church corruption and urged believers to”search the Scriptures”for the truth.

Hus was burned as a heretic in 1415, and his militant followers waged years of scorched-earth warfare, eventually securing two centuries of grudging co-existence with Catholic authorities. But in 1620, Austrian-led Catholic armies crushed a Protestant uprising, executed rebel leaders and exiled tens of thousands of Protestants.

Ironically, much of Prague’s fairyland splendor dates to this era of”re-Catholicization,”when the Catholic Church constructed spectacular Baroque churches to demonstrate its ascendancy.

Czechoslovakia won independence from Austria in 1918 under the telling slogan,”Out from Vienna, Out from Rome!”A mob tore down a statue to the Madonna that the Austrians had erected in Prague’s Old Town Square.

In World War II, Nazi Germany murdered virtually all of the small but significant Jewish community. Three million ethnic Germans, many of them devout Catholics, were exiled after the war, leaving thousands of abandoned shrines and churches behind.

When communists took power in 1948, they severely repressed religion, and their propaganda exploited Czechs’ historical grievances. But citizens grew cynical about communism after Soviet-led troops invaded in 1968, shattering hopes for a reformed”socialism with a human face.” (END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Christians played an important role in anti-communist activity, but this was no Poland. Dissidents here took their inspiration from Western counter-culturalists like rockers John Lennon and Frank Zappa and poet Allen Ginsburg. After the Velvet Revolution, Czechs who briefly flocked to church were met with aging priests and unfamiliar liturgies.”There were exaggerated expectations,”said Maly.”The church wasn’t able to offer everything.” Today, the Catholic church enjoys little political support. Most Czechs oppose its campaign to reclaim properties seized by the communists, an effort many perceive as reinforcing the church’s image as a money machine.

Missionary religions that flocked here after the revolution have barely made a dent, said Zdenek Vojtisek of the Society for the Study of Sects and New Religious Movements.”We don’t like religion, and even more we don’t like institutions,”he said.

Vojtisek said many Czechs’ religion begins and ends with something-ism.”People say, `Yes, something must be, but I don’t know what or who, and’ _ this is important _ `I am not interested.'”DEA END SMITH