Czech Mate

Monday, January 27, 2025

Today is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s also a time when ICE is rounding up people because they are brown and don’t or might not have the right papers. Papers which are extraordinarily expensive, and tied to a system which is not in any way shape or form sensible.

But I’m going to talk about a man who had the “right” papers but in an act of tremendous solidarity, refused to use them for himself.

Norbert Čapek was a Czech born Unitarian minister. He had an interesting life in and of itself, but I’m interested in two chapters, both related to World Wars.

He established the presence of Unitarianism in what was then Czechoslovakia. He devised a ritual to celebrate diversity, as he maintained that the church’s doors were open to Protestants, Jews, Catholics, anyone. He called his ritual “the flower ceremony” but today it is often called Flower Communion.

Simply put, attendees bring a flower, place it in a large centrally situated vase, and at the end of the service everyone took a different flower home. There was a whole liturgy around the vase culminating in a consecration of the flowers. A prayer from that liturgy:

“Infinite Spirit of Life, we ask thy blessing on these, thy messengers of fellowship and love. May they remind us, amid diversities of knowledge and of gifts, to be one in desire and affection, and devotion to thy holy will. May they also remind us of the value of comradeship, of doing and sharing alike. May we cherish friendship as one of thy most precious gifts. May we not let awareness of another’s talents discourage us, or sully our relationship, but may we realize that, whatever we can do, great or small, the efforts of all of us are needed to do thy work in this world.”

During the First World War he and his family weren’t only evangelists for liberal religion, but also for democracy and they wanted their homeland to be freed from the Austrian-Hungarian empire. It was at the end of the war.

He and his wife (who was also an ordained minister) were even more active during World War II. Both were invited to the United States where they’d be guaranteed safety. They had ties to the US and UK from the time of the First World War.

Norbert chose to remain in Europe, but his wife went to the US to raise funds for relief efforts in Czechoslovakia and served as the minister for a congregation in Massachusetts. Norbert wouldn’t preach Naziism. He wouldn’t stop calling for the end of the Nazi regime. He wouldn’t stop preaching about diversity and the value of all human beings. He listened to “foreign” radio broadcasts and along with one of his daughters he was arrested and sent to Dachau where he was murdered.

He could have easily left Europe—in addition to his wife he had a daughter and son-in-law in the US. But he felt so compelled to speak truth to power, to dank horrible wicked evil power, that he did so up until he was thrown in a concentration camp.

In a world of Tim Crooks, and Acorn Munch and all the other executives without spines, be a Norbert.