Protestantism (Portal of Prague)

The reformed and Lutheran churches are referred as protestant. Their members are called protestants or evangelicals. The reform took place in the sixteenth century and led to the origin of the two main protestant confessions: Lutherans "Augsburgian confession and Calvinist" Helvetian confession.

The word protestant comes from the Latin verb protestor which means ´I publicly confess, proclaim and testify´. The Lutheran knights who presented their disagreement with the ban of reformation were labelled Protestants by the Empire Assembly in 1529. Since then, the supporters of Luther and also other members of Protestant Churches have been called protestants.

The Protestant Churches in the Czech Republic

The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren – the greatest of the Czech Protestant churches. It originated in 1918 when Lutheran (Augsburgian) and Calvinist (reformed, Helvetian) churches merged. It runs its own theological faculty at Charles University in Prague – The Evangelical Theological Faculty.
Moravian Brethren (Unitas Fratrum) – the oldest Czech protestant church founded in 1457, renewed worldwide in 1727 and 1880 in the Czech lands as the Evangelical Church of Brethren. The turn of the 20th and 21st century found this church in a state of schism.
Independent Lutheran Churches:
-The Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession
-The Lutheran Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic
-The Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic
Originally Anglo-Saxon churches (rooted in puritan movement in Anglican (GB) and Episcopal (USA) Church):
-Unity of the Brethren Baptists (Anabaptist) – founded in 1611.
-The Church of the Seventh-Day Adventists – founded in 1863, but its origins date back to 1830.
-The United Methodist Church – founded in 1739.
-Salvation Army – seceded from the Methodist Church in 1865.
-Plymouth Brethren – founded in 1831, in the Czech Republic since 1909.
-The Apostolic Church – Pentecostal.
-Christian Fellowship – charismatic movement, which seceded from a traditional protestant church while adopting some Pentecostal principles.
Other churches:
-Brethren Church – reformed church, founded in 19th century when the local Pentecostal movement joined foreign missionaries to create a new church.
Quasi protestant churches:
-The Czechoslovak Hussite Church – close to Catholicism. Found in 1920 when it seceded from the Roman Catholic Church. It runs its own faculty at Charles University in Prague.
-New Apostolic Church in the Czech Republic – founded in Germany in 1863. It is very close to Catholicism.
-The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (Mormon) – It is not considered to be a church by other Christian churches. Founded in 1830.
-Jehovah´s Witness – It is not considered to be a church by other Christian churches.
-Religious Society of Czech Unitarians –It does not consider itself to be a church, but a religious society.