You wrote:
“The connection to Eastern Orthodoxy...—is that centuries before Hus, in the 9th C., Bohemia and Moravia had been evangelized by Orthodox missionaries (Sts. Cyril and Methodius)...”
I was referring to the ahistorical revisionist idea that Jerome of Prague, John Huss, and other Hussites were really Eastern Orthodox. I first encountered this idea about 8 years ago among some Eastern Orthodox. If I recall correctly, it was actively promoted by the Czech Orthodox Church which is actually less than a century old. I may be confusing the COC with some other church, however. I could find none of the old websites that used to promote the Hussite-became-Orthodox idea.
Yes, that's silly....they were all born into Roman Catholicism--as was the whole country.
However, since they lived less than 500 years from the first generation of Czech Christians who WERE originally Eastern Orthodox...and only forced into Rome's orbit for political reasons, many historians surmise that there was a generations-old resentment against the Roman Catholic Church, which made them more quickly revolt with Hus' urging.
Even relatively long past history affects peoples' attitudes in the present. Spain for example led the quest for Roman Catholic doctrinal purity with the Inquisition. They had only just finally ejected the Moors (and the Jews) in 1493...(and many thousand we now know were secretly not orthodox Catholics). Hence, the country had something to prove to the rest of Europe that they were loyal Roman Catholics--so they reacted with a strain of fanatical devotion, in the Inquisition.
It's interesting that one of Protestant history's famous heretics at that time (by any Christian measure) was Micheal Servetus. He had been tried and condemned to death twice (in absentia) by Roman Catholic Inquisition courts--but it took Calvin's Geneva to try him a 3rd time and execute this anti-trinitarian.
Different times, and different people. Or perhaps its just different times, and different heresies...