The study deals with the diplomatic activities of the Czech, respectively Czechoslovak foreign resistance in relation to the Holy See and its representatives during the World War I. It analyzes the milieu of the foreign political representation, whose activities are set to the Churchpolitical context of the years 1914–1918, with particular emphasis on the situation of the Czech Catholic milieu, which underwent a very dynamic development during the war. It mainly follows Masaryk‘s and Beneš‘s efforts to establish contacts with Church representatives in western and southern Europe, thereby increasing the prestige of their foreign action. The study is based on extensive collections of Vatican and Czech archives, supplemented by funds of other important Czech archival institutions, a number of published sources, period prints and editions of documents on Church and political history of the 20th century.
The present study deals with the Imperial Concordat of July 1933 in the context of the Vatican concordat policy towards Germany, which, moreover, is still in force. It analyses the course of negotiations which represented the culmination of the concordat policy of the Holy See towards Germany which found the Catholic Church in exceptionally good shape. The study is based on materials from the Vatican Archives (especially the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Historical Archives of the Holy See), published sources, editions and periodicals, especially the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano which confronts foreign literature, especially of German provenance.
This contribution to the discussion about the continuity of Russian (or Soviet) history focuses on the transformation of Roman Catholic Church in Russia (or the Soviet Union) before the October Revolution of 1917 and in the era that followed. It is based mainly on the knowledge of Vatican Archives and published primary sources which are then confronted with a wide array of secondary sources, mainly of British and Italian origin, summarizing the topic from the viewpoint of Western historiography. Although lacking the accent on Russian sources, it is focused on the political and religious situation in Russia in the time since the turn of the 19th and 20th century until 1920s, as seen by the Holy See. The article introduces the reader to the religious life in the country – with a further focus on Roman Catholic Church and its prominent dignitaries and personas – while taking into account the transformation of the Catholic Church in the first decade of the 20th century that has seen the Holy See hoping to be able to convert Russia to Catholicism. It also explains the animosity of Russians towards the Roman Catholicism which escalated in physical elimination of its officials in the 1920s, followed by effective elimination of the Church as a whole in 1930s.
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