Prague, Dec 14 (CTK) – The ongoing return of property to churches, which started in the Czech Republic three years ago, has triggered a total of 192 court disputes over real estate as well as pieces of movable property, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Monday.
It refers to a report the government committee for church restitution released earlier this year.
According to the church restitution law, 17 churches and religious grouping are together entitled to the return of their former property confiscated by the communist regime.
In the past months, they have been taking over the property they previously claimed by the relevant deadline, MfD writes.
The law banned the churches from claiming the property that is in possession of towns, regions and private owners. The churches are to receive financial compensation worth 59 billion crowns for the unreturned property during the next 30 years. Out of the sum, 47.2 billion is to go to the Roman Catholic Church. The rest, 11.8 billion, will be divided among the remaining 16 churches, the paper writes.
Nevertheless, churches still have initiated dozens of court disputes over real estate with towns, regions and private owners, the paper writes.
For example, the Catholic Church has filed an action against Karel Sklar, a private farmer in north Moravia, who owns 670 hectares of fields. The church claims 400 hectares of Sklar´s property. Simultaneously, the church has filed a legal action against the State Land Authority (SPU) that sold the land to Sklar five years ago, the paper writes.
The question of church restitution started to be discussed in 1991 when the state decided to block the relevant property in its possession so that it can be returned based on the planned law. However, some state institutions breached the blockade and transferred or sold real estate, as did SPU in the case of Sklar and other private farmers, the daily writes.
Sklar says he purchased his land from the SPU in good faith. As a result, it is up to the church and the SPU to settle the conflict between themselves. Sklar says he would accept it if he were offered another piece of land in exchange for the disputed one, MfD writes.
In other court cases, churches are trying to prove that certain state properties are subject to restitution, the paper continues.
Although the restitution law does not apply to property confiscated before the February 25, 1948 communist coup, certain claims by churches go beyond the deadline. For example, the German Knights Order claims the return of the Bouzov castle, north Moravia, and other plots that were seized based on the decrees president Edvard Benes issued shortly after World War Two, MfD writes.
After the Roman Catholics, the second largest compensation, about 3 billion crowns, is to go to the Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is entitled some 2,5 billion, and the Orthodox Church and the Apostolic Church to over one billion crowns each.
The remaining 11 churches will each receive less than one billion crowns, MfD writes.
It refers to the Czech Brethren´s Church (761 million), the Silesian Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession (654 million), the Unity of the Brethren (602 million), the Seventh-day Adventist Church (521 million), the United Methodist Church (368 million), the Greek Catholic Church (299 million), the Old Catholic Church (273 million), the Jewish Federation (272 million), the Baptist Union (228 million), Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic (119 million), the Lutheran Evangelical Church (114 million) and the Czech Unitarian Congregation 36 million).
