Katerina Zdarska is in the minority in the Czech Republic: She believes there is a God.
A survey released yesterday found that her nation is the only one of 18 in Europe surveyed where more people identified themselves as nonbelievers than believers. Only 32 percent of Czechs surveyed said they believe in God, compared with an average of 70 percent in other European countries.
"We (Czechs) don't really have a strong relationship to religion," said Zdarska, 32, a European Union official who specializes in Eastern European affairs.
Religion leaders and scholars explain that a unique series of twists and turns in religious and political history over the past five centuries have combined to cast the church as a symbol of repression in the minds of many Czechs.
That stands in sharp contrast to religion's image as a rallying point for national identity in many other European countries.
"From my research and experience, the Czechs are the most atheistic people in Europe," says Daniel Di Domizio, professor of theology at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wis. "In the Czech Republic, what accounts for nonreligion is almost anti-religion."
The survey, which polled more than 16,000 Western and Central Europeans in September and October, showed a wide range among countries in the degree of their residents' belief and their affiliation with a religion.
For example, at least 90 percent of respondents in Greece, Poland and Romania – the highest percentages in the poll – said they believed in a God, which pollsters described as a supernatural being or a creator. Joining the Czechs as respondents with the lowest percentage of believers were those in Sweden (45 percent), Denmark (49 percent) and the Netherlands (51 percent). But only in the Czech Republic did nonbelievers (49 percent) outnumber the 32 percent who described themselves as believers.
When asked whether they identified with a religion, fewer Czechs said "yes" than those in any other country surveyed – 30 percent. Of those respondents who answered yes, 80 percent said they were Catholic.
Historians and theologians point to an event in the early 15th century as the beginning of the Czech disillusionment with the church.
Then, Czech Catholic priest and university rector Jan Hus became inspired by 14th-century English religious reformer John Wyclif and began pushing for changes in the Catholic Church – a precursor to the Protestant movement a century later. These included ending the practice of requiring payment for forgiveness of sins, making religion more accessible by performing services in Czech and not restricting the use of bread and wine in the Eucharist to the upper classes and clergy.
When the priest presented his views to the church hierarchy, he was tried as a heretic and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415 – after earlier being promised safe passage. Many Czechs were outraged.
"That was the first step towards a distaste of the church," said Catholic priest Jan Kofron, who works for the assistant bishop of Prague, Vaclav Maly.