Coercive Operation "Take off your Habit" in the Light of Archival Documents

This study, predominantly based on archive materials, brings to light a chapter of the church history which is relatively poorly researched. It uses an investigatory method to demonstrate the efforts of the communist state power in Czechoslovakia to liquidate or at least radically restrict the existence of women's orders in the 1950s. False and artificially fabricated law-suits with top church dignitaries and the representatives of orders were accompanied by administrative restrictions of nuns' activities followed by their forceful relocation to special "centralized monasteries". Along with these measures, the representatives of the state power at the regional and district level conducted coercive operationcode- named "Take off your habit" designed to make the nuns betray their monastic vows, leave their monastic way of life and join other "useful members of society". This study is a part of a wider project, dealt with by the author, of the Czech Science Foundation, No. 409/07/0475 for 2009.

Keywords: Church history; Religion; Region of South Bohemia