Norbert Fabián Čapek (3 June 1870 – ? October 1942) was the founder of the modern Unitarian Church in the Czech Republic.
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Čapek was born into a Roman Catholic family on 3 June 1870, in Radomyšl, a village in Strakonice District in southern Bohemia. As a boy he wanted to join the priesthood, but soon became disillusioned with the church. At the age of 18 he left Catholicism for the Baptist church and was ordained a minister.
Čapek traveled widely as a Baptist evangelist, from Saxony in the west to the Ukraine in the east. In Moravia he was influenced by the free Christianity and the Moravian Brotherhood, and his religious convictions became progressively more liberal and anti-clerical. He wrote for and edited a number of journals. His articles on topics ranging from psychology to politics attracted unfavorable attention from the German authorities, and in 1914 he fled to the United States.
Čapek moved his family to the United States where he became editor of a Czech language newspaper. Pursuing his increasingly liberal religious perspective, he discovered Unitarianism and in 1921 joined the First Unitarian Church of Essex County (in Orange, New Jersey).
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 US, Čapek met and married another Czech expatirate, Mája Oktavec. Together, they decided to bring Unitarianism back to their homeland, newly independent after World War I. The couple returned to Prague in 1921.
The new Unitarian congregation they formed in Prague, called the Liberal Religious Fellowship, grew rapidly and soon purchased a large building dubbed "Unitaria" at the foot of the Charles Bridge. The early worship services generally consisted of lectures. The minister wore no robe or vestments; and the congregation dispensed with elaborate rituals, singing of hymns, ornate decoration, and formal or prescribed prayers. 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 the uniqueness of each individual, and the coming together in communion to share this uniqueness.
Although he was invited to return to the United States during World War II, Čapek chose to remain in Europe. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, he was arrested by the Gestapo, who confiscated his books and sermons. He was charged with listening to foreign broadcasts (a capital crime) and was taken in 1942 to the Dachau concentration camp, where he lived in the "Priesterblock". He was tortured and eventually gassed late in 1942.[1]
When news of his death reached the United States, the American Unitarian Association 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.