The Toleration Patent – Memorial of the Issuance of the Toleration Patent at Godula mountain in Beskidy mountains

Fact of the Czech figure „Steps towards religious tolerance”

Part of the „Religious tolerance and intolerance” topic

Despite more than 150 years of harsh and systematic efforts at re-catholicisation, numerous groups of secret Protestants persisted in various regions. The evident ineffectiveness of repressive measures, economic losses due to religiously motivated emigrations to neighbouring countries, and the influence of Enlightenment theories of natural religion all led Joseph II to issue the Toleration Patent in October 1781.

This decree allowed members of the Helvetic, Augsburg, and Eastern Orthodox confessions to practice their faith privately. The proclamation of religious tolerance must be seen in the context of other state reforms, including the reorganization of church administration, the dissolution of monasteries, and the codification of marriage law. Thus, although economic considerations primarily motivated the abolition of the Catholic Church’s ideological monopoly, it is not surprising that tolerant Protestants felt almost uncritical gratitude towards the monarch.

The Toleration Patent is certainly part of Czech collective memory, but its only significant monument is located at Godula in the Silesian Beskids, at the site of the so-called forest church where Protestants secretly gathered for prayer.