Bloudící kněz, nebo církevní reformátor? K životnímu dílu Bohumila Zahradníka Brodského (1862−1939)

This paper analyses the life’s work of this Catholic priest and writer, in particular aiming to evoke his interventions and role in the Catholic clergy reform movement which, following the end of the First World War and establishment of an independent Czechoslovak Republic, demanded reform of the Church and its transformation into a national church community. Already at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, he was one of the critics of ultramonatism and Austro- Catholicism and changes in social and legal conditions put him amongst the protagonists of the Union of Czech Catholic Clergy. He set up its radical faction and in 1920 was one of the founders of the Czechoslovak Church. In the process of seeking out the church’s doctrinal focus, he promoted its orthodoxisation. The study places his efforts within a wider context and besides the introduction and conclusion evokes this in three differently-focused sections – in a biography, in a summary of his efforts in Czech literature and in his operation in the Church sphere.