Norbert Čapek

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Norbert Čapek (1870-06-03 – 1942) founder of the Unitarian Church in the Czech Republic.

Čapek was born into a Catholic family on June 3, 1870 in Radomysl, a small town in southern Bohemia. As a boy he wanted to join the priesthood, but in his late teens, he turned to the Baptist church and was ordained as a minister.

Eventually Čapek authored a series of articles on topics ranging from psychology to politics. He fled to the US after certain articles, which he wrote on the impending war, angered German authorities.

He moved his family to the United States where he became editor of a Czech language newspaper. Eventually, Čapek's religious perspective began to change and he discovered Unitarianism. In 1920, he was joined the Unitarian ministry.

While in the United States, Čapek suffered two heresy trials at the accusation of Slovak Baptist ministers, in attempts to expel him from the Baptist association.

Widowed shortly after his arrival in America, Čapek met and married another Czech expatirate, Maja Oktavec. Together they decided to bring Unitarianism back to their homeland. The couple returned to Prague in 1921.

The new congregation they formed grew rapidly and soon purchased a large building at the foot of the Charles Bridge that was dubbed "Unitaria." The early worship services generally consisted of lectures. Some members felt that the congregation lacked a spiritual dimension. In response Čapek created the Flower Communion. Each member would bring a flower to the church where it was placed in a large central vase. At the end of the service, each would take home a different flower. This symbolized that each member is a unique individual and that they came together to share this uniqueness.

Upon returning to Czechoslovakia after World War I, Čapek founded a Unitarian congregation in Prague called the Liberal Religious Fellowship. Thousands flocked to this new church. It was just the type of religion that so many were looking for. Most had come from the Roman Catholic church and they wanted a religion that looked nothing like it, so the minister wore no robe or vestments, they wanted no elaborate rituals, no singing of hymns, no ornate building, no formal or prescribed prayers.

During World War II, although he was invited to return to the United States, Čapek chose to remain in Europe. He gave a series of sermons on the topic of freedom and justice which got him into trouble with the Gestapo and in March 1941 his books and sermons were confiscated. Čapek was taken to the Dachau concentration camp where he lived for a year and a half in the "Priesterblock."^[1]

During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, Gestapo broke into the apartment of Čapek, confiscated his books and sermons and arrested him and his youngest daughter. He was charged with treason for the crime of listening to the radio and taken eventually to the Dachau concentration camp where he was tortured and eventually executed.

When news of his death reached the US, the American Unitarian Assoc. president, Fredrick May Eliot wrote, "Another name is added to the list of heroic Unitarian martyrs, by whose death our freedom has been bought, Ours is now the responsibility to see to it that we stand fast in the liberty so gloriously won."

The International Association for Religious Freedom placed a plaque in the camp in his memory.