EN
The study focuses on a manuscript which was compiled by the Czech exile Bořek Mateřovský z Mateřova in Saxon Pirna in the 1630s. The book is unique due to the fact that its author was an untaught layman who intentionally and comprehensively depicted his religious views. He compiled the book from illustrations and texts of various genres into three hierarchically arranged parts. The first part contains the author’s religious creed connected with eschatology, memento mori and family memory. The second part contains a collection of prayers and songs including private conversations with God. Some of them were composed by Mateřovský himself, while others were written for him by Czech priests in Pirna. In the last part, he provides a description of historical events from the issue of the Letter of Majesty (1609) to the death of Gustav II Adolph in the Battle of Lützen (1632), and later added several other events from the Thirty Years’ War up until the year 1638. All the parts of the manuscript are pervaded by the author’s confession, which consists almost exclusively of the demand for Communion under both kinds. Mateřovský’s understanding of the mundane and other worlds was determined by the notion of a struggle between the sole true church, i.e. the Protestants, and the Antichrist, i.e. the Catholics, describing contemporary events from this particular point of view. He perceived himself and his sons as Christian warriors. For him, conversion to Catholicism would be an obstacle to salvation and he expressed his fear of failure which would lead to the damnation of his soul. The manuscript demonstrates the extent of the religious outlook of a devout layman who almost solely stressed the importance of the chalice and passed over theological controversies among Protestants. It also testifies to the individualisation of religious concepts including inaccuracies in terms of orthodoxy as well as an irreconcilable determination to adhere to and defend one’s own creed.