EN
The right to religious liberty is one of the basic human rights. The claim of the liberty of denomination was conceived at the birth of the first declarations of human rights (at the end of the18th century in the USA and France). Inside the Roman-Catholic church a very restrained and complex process took place regarding the recognition of the right for religious liberty which was acknowledged only by the Second Vatican Council in the declaration of religious liberty 'Dignitatis humanae' in 1965. In Bohemia, the Catholic bishop Johann Leopold von Hay was responsible for radiating tolerance and religious liberty in exceptional ways, and upheld the policy of tolerance of Emperor Joseph II. In his diocese he strove extraordinarily for the new way of co-existence between Catholics and Protestants. In a pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese (published in 1781), he enunciated fundamentals and principles of religious liberty for non-Catholics, which retain universal significance for recognition of the right to religious liberty. It refers to the same principles that became the object of later theological reflection that allowed the adoption of the above mentioned declaration about religious liberty 'Dignitatis humanae'.