Eucharistic Renewal and Ecclesiastical Reform in Bohemia: Review of David R Holeton, 'La communion des tout-petits enfants Étude du mouvement eucharistique en Bohême vers la fin du Moyen-Age'

Abstract

The central motif of the Hussite rebellion and the early Bohemian Reformation was the chalice. There is nothing novel in that assertion. Indeed, the place of the chalice in Hussite Bohemia has been universally acknowledged since the fifteenth century. What is novel, however, is the suggestion that the chalice for all the baptized, including small babies, was a central motif of the reform effort, indeed a motif which can only be dismissed or ignored at the cost of misunderstanding the entire Hussite revolution. David Holeton claims that the chalice for all the baptized is at once the genius and the heart of reform among Hussites.