Fathers of the Reformation: Jan Hus by Pastor Thomas Goodroad

This month’s father of the Reformation is Jan Hus (1369-1415)! (Pronounced Yawn Hoos)

Hus was born around 1369 in the southern Bohemian town of Husinec, which is where he got the surname “Hus.” Immediately, we see a red flag here. Jan Hus, a father of the Reformation, died a hundred years before the start of it? Maybe it would be more accurate to call him a grandfather of the reformation rather than a father, but regardless of the semantics, his influence upon Luther and the Reformation is undeniable.

Though it would be a stretch to call Hus a Lutheran, he was of a similar mind to Luther with his emphasis on scriptural authority and his critique of ecclesiastical corruption. Hus taught that the Word of God should be the final authority in matters of faith and practice. He argued against the idea that the pope or church councils held ultimate authority, insisting instead that all doctrines should be tested against Scripture. This view aligns closely with the Lutheran principle of sola Scriptura, which asserts that the Bible alone is the ultimate standard for Christian faith. Hus’s dedication to Scripture paved the way for reformers like Luther, who built upon this foundational truth when he challenged the authority of the papacy and councils at the Diet of Worms in 1521.

Hus, like Luther, also condemned and criticized the sale of indulgences, seeing it as evidence that the church was letting corruption in. He also criticized the moral corruption of the clergy and the mass accumulation of wealth. All of these served to set the stage for the Reformation later on, though sadly, Hus would not live to see the results.

Because of these criticisms of the church, as well as other theology closely associated with John Wycliffe, Hus was imprisoned at the Council of Constance in 1414. Because he had a powerful friend in the Bohemian king Wenceslas IV, Hus was granted a public hearing in June of 1415 before being sentenced for crimes of heresy. Hus was expecting and preparing for a theological debate, wherein he would clarify what he did and did not believe with Scriptural support, but he was, instead, met with a list of teachings ascribed to him. He was not offered the chance to explain or reject individual charges but was merely asked whether or not he would recant all of the beliefs recorded there. He refused and was subsequently burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.

Over a century later, Hus’s death would continue to cause ripples; Johann Eck, at the Leipzig Debate in 1519, accused Luther of being a Hussite for rejecting the authority of the Roman church. Luther responded that he found nothing wrong in Hus’s claim that the Greek church was on equal footing with the Roman church and that the Council of Constance had erred in condemning and executing Hus. This led Luther to first exclaim that councils, like popes and theologians, could err and were thus subordinate to Scripture. It was only after Leipzig that in 1520 Luther finally read Hus’s De ecclesia, which led him to state that he, his prior Johannes von Staupitz, St. Augustine, and even St. Paul were “all Hussites.”

We thank God for Jan Hus and his dedication to Scriptural authority, contributing to our faithful adherence to the Scriptures today.