The Slovak Evangelical Church of Augsburg denomination under the "supervision" of the state (1953-1970)

At the beginning of the development of totalitarian state-and-church relati onships in Czechoslovakia (more or less in the years 1948-1953) even the Ev angelical Church was paralysed. The Evangelical Church leadership of Augsbu rg denomination in Slovakia was personally rebuilt and "the reactionary" re presentatives of the church were replaced by the reliable ones. But the Chu rch continued to live and protected itself as far as the totalitarian regim e made it possible. After Stalin's crimes had been discovered at the XXth C ongress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the year 1956, the Evangelical priests' activities among their believers increa sed. But the Czechoslovak regime overcame its crisis at the turn of the yea rs 1956-1957 and became more strict.