Saturday, June 04, 2011

Czech state seeks to settle communist church seizures

The Czech state is seeking to return more land and less cash to churches that were dispossessed under the communist regime as the government moves to close a long-running dispute over restitution.

Under an outline deal being put together by the Ministry of Culture, 59 percent of the settlement with the churches would be in the form of returned property worth at least Kč 75 billion and as much as Kč 77 billion if some land now used for military training is thrown in. 

The remainder of the estimated Kč  135 billion worth of confiscated church property will be paid in cash over 30 years at the most.

A previous offer counted on repayments dragging out over 60 years.
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The latest proposal marks a major increase in the amount of returned property that the Czech state wants to return compared with a 2008 offer that counted on confiscated farmland, forests and lakes making up only 39 percent of the settlement. 

That deal created a public uproar in the largely nonreligious country and was rejected by the lower house of Parliament at its first reading.

Most of the returned property would come from state-run forestry company Lesy České republiky and from the state-asset manager, the National Property Fund (NMF).

“The offer that was handed over today to the representatives of the church and religious groups should not be perceived as anything other than an attempt to solve a long-lasting and persistent problem,” the Culture Ministry said in a statement.

The Catholic Church was by far the biggest loser when the communist regime seized power in February 1948 and moved to victimize the institution, close down monasteries and expropriate property. 

The Catholic Church and Vatican were portrayed by state propaganda at the start of the Cold 
War as part of a capitalist conspiracy seeking to stamp out the regime. 

The Communist regime also at one stage in the 1950s tried to create its own substitute church that would obey its wishes using the services of an excommunicated priest, Josef Plojhar.

The communists also sought to draw on historical Czech antagonism to the church, which was one of the greatest beneficiaries when the Catholic Habsburgs defeated Bohemian noblemen at the Battle of White Mountain on the edge of Prague in 1620. 

The defeat is regarded as the end of an independent Bohemia and start of submission to imperial rule from Vienna. 

Many non-Catholic nobles who fought with the defeated army were forced to flee and their lands handed over to Catholics and the Catholic Church in the wake of the battle.

The Czech Bishops’ Conference (ČBK) made no initial reaction to the latest government offer. 

Some parts of the church, such as monastic orders, had complained about the settlement offer in 2008 for the large cash component, saying that they would rather have their original land returned.