Norbert Čapek (prounounced CHAH-pek) was born in 1870 in Czechoslovakia during the
last days of the Austrian regime. His family was too poor to give him an education so they
sent Norbert to live with his Uncle Victor in Vienna who was a successful tailor. Norbert
was to work his way through the university as an apprentice.
Norbert disliked his family's and uncle's Catholic religion and explored other faiths.
He became a Baptist and Uncle Victor booted him out of the house. The Baptists took
Norbert in and put him through Seminary. He was a Bible salesman and missionary.
On his own he began a magazine featuring articles on psychology and science.
Norbert was bright, questioning, alert to intellectual and political issues. He
insisted that religion apply to life.
The Protestant religion was regarded as subversive by the authorities and the police
raided Čapek's belongings more than once. He was the Baptists' most successful evangelist.
Čapek decided to go to the US to escape persecution. His probing, scientific spirit led
him to become dissatisfied with the Baptist faith. Norbert met Thomas
Masaryh, who later
became the first Czech President, and was married to an American Unitarian.
Čapek was
overjoyed to find such an open faith. He sought out and joined the Unitarian Church in
Orange, New Jersey.
When World War I was over and the Czech nation launched, Čapek was sent by the American
Unitarian Association as a missionary to Prague. Unitarianism was new to Czechoslovakia.
In the beginning Norbert rented a concert hall in which to meet. Eventually the group
built their own building, named "Unitaria". The services were starkly simple.
People came from many religious backgrounds and didn't want to be reminded of their old
churches. Čapek wore no robe. There was no singing of hymns, no prayers. Instead of the
collection plate, the members paid as they entered!
Norbert felt the church needed a symbolic ritual that would bind them together, in
which everyone could participate without reservation. He designed the Flower Communion. On
the last Sunday before summer vacation in 1923, each person would bring a flower to the
service and choose a different one to take home. The flower symbolized each member as a
unique individual, choosing freely to join with one another, sharing their presence and
gifts. The exchanging of flowers symbolized the benefits of fellowship and friendship. The
flower communion has become perhaps the most widely-celebrated ritual in Unitarian
Universalist congregations today. Every spring, most of our churches and fellowships
devote a Sunday to this festive participatory service which celebrates both the earth's
beauty and humanity's oneness.
As soon as Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, Čapek was marked for elimination. He was
interrogated by the Nazis, whose spies listened to every word he preached. For a time he
veiled his message of freedom in Biblical parables and religious double-talk, but
inevitably, he was arrested and all his writings seized. They charged him with treason.
Incredibly, he was released, but when the Czech Resistance assassinated the chief local
Nazi, Čapek was sent off to Dachau in retaliation, with this fatal instruction on his
papers: "return unwanted." In prison, he kept his fellows' spirits up with
dauntless humor and a cheerful spirit, but one day they injected him with a lethal poison.
Just before his death, he wrote this prayer:
It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred ideals. Oh, blow, you
evil winds, into my body's fire. My soul, you'll never unravel. Even though disappointed a
thousand times or fallen in the fight, and everything worthless seem, I have lived amidst
eternity. Be grateful, my soul. My life was worth living. The one who was pressed from all
sides but remained victorious in spirit is welcomed into the choir of heroes.
Copyright
©2006, Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church.