The Hussites (Czech: Husité or Kališníci; "Chalice People") were a Czech Proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation.

 

The Hussite movement began in the Kingdom of Bohemia and quickly spread throughout the remaining Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including Moravia and Silesia. It also made inroads into the northern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia), but was rejected and gained infamy for the plundering behavior of the Hussite soldiers. There were also very small temporary communities in Poland-Lithuania and Transylvania which moved to Bohemia after being confronted with religious intolerance. It was a regional movement that failed to expand anywhere farther. Hussites emerged as a majority Utraquist movement with a significant Taborite faction, and smaller regional ones that included Adamites, Orebites and Orphans. Major Hussite theologians included Petr Chelčický, Jerome of Prague, and others. A number of Czech national heroes were Hussite, including Jan Žižka, who led a fierce resistance to five consecutive crusades proclaimed on Hussite Bohemia by the Papacy. Hussites were one of the most important forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. This predominantly religious movement was propelled by social issues and strengthened Czech national awareness.

 

After the Council of Constance lured Jan Hus in with a letter of indemnity, then tried him for heresy and put him to death at the stake on 6 July 1415, the Hussites fought the Hussite Wars (1420–1434) for their religious and political cause. After the Hussite Wars ended, the Catholic-supported Utraquist side came out victorious from conflict with the Taborites and became the most common representation of the Hussite faith in Bohemia. Catholics and Utraquists were emancipated in Bohemia after the religious peace of Kutná Hora in 1485.

Bohemia and Moravia, or what is now the territory of the Czech Republic, remained majority Hussite for two centuries until Roman Catholicism was re-imposed by the Holy Roman Emperor after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War. That event and centuries of Habsburg persecution caused Hussite traditions to be merely represented in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren and the refounded Czechoslovak Hussite churches among present-day Christians.

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Chomutov, (German: Komotau), city, northwestern Czech Republic. It lies at the foot of the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory) near the German border, northwest of Prague. Probably Czech in origin, Chomutov was a command post of the Teutonic Knights in the 14th century and remained German until the end of World War II. It is a manufacturing centre with iron and steel industries and a rail junction at the western end of the northern Bohemian coal basin, a lignite-mining area. Pop. (2007 est.) 49,817.