JOHN HUSS
JOHN HUSS
Richard II had married a native of Bohemia, and through her servants, the works of Wycliffe were carried to that country, where they were effectively preached to the people by John Huss of Prague.
Pope John XXIII, seeking to suppress the Bohemians, appointed Cardinal de Columna to look into Huss’s preaching and deal with any heresy he might find, so Columna set a date for Huss to appear before him in Rome.
Huss never appeared on the designated date, but King Wenceslaus of Bohemia sent ambassadors to assure Columna that any false doctrine being preached in his country would be taken care of by him, at his expense. At the same time, Huss sent his own ambassadors to assure the cardinal he was innocent of heresy. Columna refused all their pleas and excommunicated Huss for failing to appear in person.
The Bohemians couldn’t have cared less about the proclamation of excommunication. The more they grew in knowledge of the Lord through Huss, the less they cared for the pope and his rules, especially since the church was divided at that time, with three men arguing over the office of pope. Although the Bohemian church officials succeeded in having Huss banned from Prague, he carried on his work, spreading Wycliffe’s message among the people and causing a great uproar over the church’s riches and abuses.
Wenceslaus took advantage of his subjects’ states of mind to levy heavy taxes on the clergy, silencing them in Bohemia and filling his treasury at the same time.
In 1414, a general church conference was held in Constance to resolve the problem of the three popes and also deal with the Bohemians. Assured of safe conduct by both Emperor Sigismund and one of the popes, Huss traveled to the conference, arriving in Constance on November 3. Twenty-six days later, he appeared before the bishops to defend himself but was not allowed to speak. In violation of the promises made to him, he was imprisoned for “safe keeping” and charged with eight articles of heresy.
On June 7, 1415, Huss was brought before a council and condemned as a heretic when he refused to recant his support of Wycliffe’s theology. He was stripped of all his church offices, made to wear a paper hat with the words ARCH HERETIC on it, and led past a fire consuming his books.
On July 6, 1415, the hangman stripped Huss of his clothes, tied his hands behind him, then chained his neck to the stake. At that point, Huss told the hangman that he was glad to accept the chain for the Lord’s sake. Straw and wood were piled around him to his chin, and the fire was lit. As the flames rose around him, Huss was heard to say over and over, “Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, have mercy upon me,” until the flames choked him. When all the wood was burned, the upper part of his body was still hanging in the chain, so they threw it down, made a new fire, and burned it after cutting his head into small pieces. When he was totally burned, Huss’s ashes were carefully collected and thrown into the Rhône River.