Jan Hus
Career

Hus began teaching at the University of Prague in 1398 and in 1399, he first publicly defended propositions of Wycliffe. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1400. In 1401, his students and faculty promoted him to dean of the philosophical department, and a year later, he became a rector of the University of Prague. He was appointed a preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel in 1402. Hus was a strong advocate for the Czechs and the Realists, and he was influenced by the writings of John Wycliffe. Although Church authorities banned many of Wycliffe's works in 1403, Hus translated Trialogus into Czech and helped to distribute it.

Hus denounced the moral failings of clergy, bishops, and even the papacy from his pulpit. Archbishop Zbyněk Zajíc tolerated this, and even appointed Hus a preacher at the clergy's biennial synod. On 24 June 1405, Pope Innocent VII directed the Archbishop to counter Wycliffe's teachings, especially the idea of impanation in the Eucharist. The archbishop complied by issuing a synod decree against Wycliffe, as well as forbidding any further attacks on the clergy.

In 1406, two Bohemian students brought to Prague a document bearing the seal of the University of Oxford and praising Wycliffe. Hus proudly read the document from his pulpit. Then, in 1408, Pope Gregory XII warned Archbishop Zajic that the Church in Rome had been informed of Wycliffe's heresies and of the sympathies of King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia for nonconformists. In response, the king and university ordered all of Wycliffe's writings surrendered to the archdiocesan chancery for correction. Hus obeyed, declaring that he condemned the errors in those writings.
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