Establishment of Diplomatic Relations Between Czechoslovakia and the Holy See After the Creation of Czechoslovakia in the Fall of 1918

Abstract

The present study deals with the establishment and development of diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and the Holy See immediately after the creation of Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1918 which underwent a dramatic and turbulent change. The most acute questions to discuss included the filling of Czech and Slovak bishopric thrones, the Church administration in Slovakia and the matters of Church education while the filling of the bishopric thrones in the Czech lands and Slovakia proved to be of crucial importance for the proper functioning of the Church administration in Czechoslovakia. The study is based on source material, mainly of diplomatic nature, from the Archive of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague and the Vatican archives, the study reconstructs the character, form and transformation of diplomatic relations between the young Republic and the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Rome at the turn of the 1910s and 1920s. Extensive archival funds have been confronted with numerous literature sources, including contemporary history texts.