Norbert Čapek and the Flower Communion
David R. Weiss – June 10, 2023

It was the simplest of “rituals”—almost cute. The instructions I received by email during the week before the May 21 worship service were sparse: “Bring a flower to share in person. Each year, we celebrate spring and the closing of the ‘formal’ church year with a Flower Communion. We remember the story of the first Flower Communion celebrated by Norbert Čapek (Cha-peck), who was the founder of the Unitarian Church in Czechoslovakia, and we reflect on the beauty of distinct individuals coming together as community.”

I couldn’t “remember” anything. New to Unitarian circles, I’d never even heard of this Flower Communion. I did a brief internet search during the week to orient myself a bit, and on Sunday morning I snipped a sprig of lilac to bring to church. When I arrived at the Michael Servetus Unitarian Society in Fridley, I added my lilac bloom to one of the vases receiving flowers on a table up in the front. By the time worship started there was a riot of colorful blooms up front. Near the end of the service, we were invited forward so that each of us could take a bloom different than the one we brought. A sort of flower-exchange extravaganza. So simple. And almost cute.

It’s the story shared in between (as the sermon) that connects the flowers to radical fellowship and faithfulness that makes this simple ritual so powerful. Even in the face of fascism and a fearful future. For Čapek’s community … and for ours.

Norbert Čapek (1870-1942) founded the Unitarian church in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1922. Raised Catholic in Bohemia (present day Czech Republic), as a teenager he grew disheartened by his priest’s cynicism and the seeming failure of rigid Catholic dogma and authority to produce an inward warm-hearted spirituality. Hence, at age 18, he became Baptist—and a fervent one, soon also becoming a Baptist minister. He was a powerful force: a compelling preacher, an editor of several religious journals, a prolific writer and composer of hymns, founder of almost a dozen Baptist churches, and an elected leader of the Union of Baptist Churches of Moravia and Slovakia.

He was also a visionary thinker, his convictions became increasingly liberal, even radical—influenced by his study of the past and his openness to the theological ferment in the present. While studying the religious history of Bohemia and Moravia (especially Jan Hus, 1369-1415) he became convinced that the true faith of the Czech people was a “free faith”—a spiritual practice that prized individual conscience and pursued an ardent community life rooted in love. In the writings of his contemporary, the Social Gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), he met a kindred spirit, someone also determined to work out the radical meaning of a fully Christian life in his day and age.

Around 1910 he discovered the Unitarian tradition and felt certain that it reflected the inner spirit of the Czech people, but he was not able to get support for establishing a Unitarian church, so he continued to develop his thought as a Baptist minister, though with increasing conflict. Catholicism had been the state-religion of his homeland for years, and his writings were increasingly deemed anti-Catholic—and censored. In 1914, with World War I on the horizon and under threats of further reprisals from the government, he accepted a call to serve a small Baptist church in New York, followed soon after by a call to a larger Baptist church in New Jersey.

However, Čapek’s writings, which voiced his concern that the Baptist tradition was becoming dogmatic in its own way, forsaking the simple call to Christ-like community and the supreme respect for inward freedom, led to two heresy trials soon after his arrival in the U.S. He was acquitted both times, but the personal sting ran deep, and in 1919 he resigned as a Baptist minister. A little over a year later, after having commissioned their three school-age children (!) to sample the church Sunday schools in their New Jersey community, he and his wife joined their children at the First Unitarian Church of Essex County. From then on, at age fifty-one, Čapek’s spiritual vision found a home in the Unitarian tradition.

After the conclusion of the First World War, Czechoslovakia became independent, and many Czechs seized the opportunity to leave the (no longer state-endorsed) Catholic church. Čapek and his family were among many other Czechs who decided to return from abroad to their homeland. In his case, he went intending to found a Unitarian church that might invite the Czech people to rekindle the free faith and the true Christianity that he was convinced had deep roots in their past. To say he was successful would be understatement.

Already during the ocean voyage back to Prague (with many Czechs among his fellow passengers), he offered talks on the “true history” of the Czech spirit, entwining its deep democratic-spiritual inklings with support for Czechoslovakia’s nascent democracy. Once in Prague he set to building a church—not a structure, but a people. Recall those earlier references to “compelling preacher” and “visionary thinker”? After beginning with small groups of a couple dozen here and there in the fall of 1921, when he led the inaugural worship service of the Prague Congregation of Liberal Religious Fellowship in April 1922 there were over 1200 persons in attendance! By the following year Čapek wrote there were days when the large church where they rented meeting space, “which comfortably holds 3000 people,” was filled to capacity and that there were many who could not get in. And on Tuesday evenings 700 (!) gathered to hear the sermon a second time and discuss it. Successful? And then some!

Now, back to that Flower Communion. In June 1923, as his congregation (per Unitarian custom in the U.S.) was preparing to take its summer holiday from worship, Čapek wanted a ritual to evocatively bind them together across their deep diversity. His community included persons of all social classes, with varied ethnic, educational, and religious backgrounds. At the time many Unitarian churches still practiced Holy Communion, but he knew this wouldn’t be a ritual of unity for his congregation. His community included both ex-Catholics and Protestants, whose views of and reactions to Holy Communion could be very different. It also included ex-Jews and persons with no church background at all who had become intrigued by Čapek’s energy and vision.

He needed a ritual that was without other religious association and accessible to everyone. He created the Flower Communion and first instituted it on June 24, 1923. Inviting everyone to bring a simple flower and place it in a large vase as they entered the church, Čapek preached about their common unity in heartfelt fellowship—regardless of race, class, or other distinction. A unity grounded in God who loved them all and who took joy in their common flourishing. A unity grounded in the shared purpose they had experienced over the past year fashioning a community knit together by simple friendship and shaped by divine love. He reminded them that each of the gathered flowers had unique needs to grow and flourish—as well as unique beauty and gifts to offer. That each flower had a dignity and glory bestowed by God.

Then he encouraged the congregation to come forward, each taking a different flower than the one they’d brought. These were to be taken home, and in doing so, he asked them to imagine themselves carrying home—and caring for—the needs of one another; noticing and celebrating the beauty of one another; and regarding with awe the God-given glory of their fellow congregants.

A simple ritual. Almost cute. Except when practiced against the backdrop of rebirthing the spirituality of the Czech people and amid the shared experience of fashioning a community through the practice of friendship and love. In that context, it proved a ritual that Čapek himself described as “so powerful and impressive that I never experienced anything like it.” Adding that “the most dry and rationalistic members were moved and many an eye brightened through tears.”

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Flower Communion. In 1940 Čapek’s wife Mája (who had been ordained in 1926) brought the Flower Communion to the United States, where it quickly spread among Unitarian churches here. Today it is likely the most widely celebrated ritual among Unitarians around the world. But it’s in “the rest of the story” that the full power of the Flower Communion becomes clear.

For nearly twenty years Čapek persevered in his vision, though not without some turmoil. There was friction at times with the more conservative (and perhaps envious) Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as occasional episodes of infighting within the congregation amid bouts of financial desperation. Still, the Unitarian church in Prague was at one point the largest Unitarian congregation in the world. 300 or more children and youth were enrolled in the church Sunday school. The congregation sponsored a church leadership training school and an extensive community counseling program. Courses in religious history and philosophy written by Čapek were being used in the public schools. Alongside the struggles, his conviction that liberal faith—prizing individual conscience and communal fellowship—could leaven the whole of life was being shown true in practice.

And then the Nazis came knocking. Literally.

First in 1938 at the nation’s border. When Hitler demanded the annexation of Czechoslovakia’s southern territory, France and Great Britain (with the silent assent of the U.S.) decided it was a sacrifice worth making to preserve “peace.” Rather than answer Czechoslovakia’s call for defense, they pressured the Czech government to cede the land. When the government felt it had no choice but to accept Hitler’s terms, the protests by the Czech populace were fierce. And Čapek was with the protesters. Preaching the following Sunday (September 25, 1938), he declared “We Czechs are becoming the backbone of the history of humanity. We are today the only nation in the whole of Europe that is ready to resist oppression. Confronting our descendants, we will never have to feel ashamed of the fact that as a small nation in the middle of Europe we were ready to defend human dignity, freedom, and justice from violence, lies, and lawlessness.” Did he really imagine that his community and its Flower Communion as a match for fascism?

By the following year (1939), the whole of Czechoslovakia was in German control. In March, the American Unitarian Association wrote to Čapek offering him a “minister-at-large” position in the U.S., with a stipend sufficient to maintain himself and his wife until he could draw a pension in 1941. His response, tendered almost immediately, remarked on his happiness at the offer of economic security—commenting wryly, “It is the first assurance since 1921 that I have an economic background for more than one year.” After which he politely but firmly declined their offer, asserting that he could not leave his people in this moment no matter what sufferings might come.

Čapek now found himself ministering to a congregation—really a national community—that felt abandoned by the world but was united within itself. Shortly after the German occupation began, the fourteen distinct Czech political parties coalesced to form a single National Solidarity Party (NSP). In April 1939, the NSP invited citizens to register as members of the new party on the basis of a single yes/no affirmation at the polls to the ballot statement, “I am a Czech.” The results were announced on May 4: of the 2,083,427 persons who cast a ballot, 2,079,185—99.25%—voted ‘yes.’ Solidarity.

(In a note of sad contrast, six months later, days after Germany had invaded Poland, triggering declarations of war by Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand, a Gallup poll asked Americans whether the U.S. should send troops to fight Germany. 94%—solidarity of a very different sort—said, No.)

Life in the congregation in Prague continued with fervor, as well as in the six “mission centers” it sponsored around the country. Unable to buck the German occupation, the people fueled their inward fellowship with all the energy they had. Mája reported that the Flower Communion was being celebrated, both in Prague and in the missions, now a mystical embrace of dignity, beauty, freedom—in the very shadow of death.

Because of the crowds that came to hear Čapek preach, Gestapo agents also attended regularly, listening for any covert messages he might be trying to pass to his congregation. Although he did manage to slip hidden phrases of national pride into his messages—even proclaiming in one sermon, “Knowing how to live is a great thing … but the highest knowledge of living must include the knowledge of how to die … for we are God’s children and heirs of immortality”—there is no record that the Gestapo ever caught on to the full subversive character of his preaching.

When Čapek turned 70 (June 3, 1940), his congregation planned a festive celebration. More than 700 persons came, including noted guests from other churches and many organizations. More than 100 congratulatory letters and telegrams arrived. But the “showstopper” was a gift he received from the church’s Board of Trustees—no doubt delivered apart from the public fanfare: a shortwave radio. As with all such radios sold in German-occupied lands, it carried a tag that warned users that listening to foreign broadcasts was a crime punishable by death.

From then on it might be said that Čapek flirted daily with death as it became his routine to listen to BBC or Voice of America broadcasts each day for the next nine months. It’s not clear how widely Čapek shared the news he gleaned from these broadcasts, though it’s likely they shaped the tone of his preaching. In any case, the following March (1941) the Nazis came knocking again. Literally—this time on Čapek’s door.

There are too many details to fill them all in. Čapek and his 28-year-old daughter, Zora, were arrested and charged with listening to and disseminating foreign broadcasts. Čapek himself was also charged with high treason on account of his public preaching. After an initial trial, they were held for an entire year before the appeal was heard in April 1942. Both were found guilty of listening to foreign broadcasts; but the court determined that Čapek’s preaching did not rise to the level of treason. Zora was sentenced to 18 months; Čapek himself, on account of his age, was given a 12-month sentence—including the recommendation that he receive credit for the 11 months already spent in jail.

Zora served her sentence and survived the war. But when Čapek’s sentence was received at the Gestapo headquarters in Prague, it was ignored. “Ignored” is too light; the case officer there wrote on the file, “Send this prisoner to Dachau. His return is un-wished.” It seems likely that this death sentence came in retaliation for the assassination of the Nazi official overseeing the German occupation of Czechoslovakia; the Gestapo were livid and executions of opinion leaders were rampant.  

On July 5, 1942 Čapek arrived in Dachau. He remained there for a little over three months, put to hard labor. The only eyewitness report from Dachau—a letter written to Mája soon after the war ended—came from a Catholic priest who had been with Čapek in Dachau. He described their living conditions as brutal: “There was such terrible hunger that we were driven to digging for earthworms and eating them.” Then he recounted Čapek with awe: an encouragement to others at all times, sharing his meager rations, bringing “a great number” of others to God there in the camp, a man whose countenance carried in it “a higher power.”

Earlier, on March 31, 1942, the day before their final trial, Čapek had passed a piece of paper to his daughter Zora, containing his final poem. In it he declares: “I have lived amidst eternity.” Perhaps it was his own way of acknowledging the higher power that so framed his being.

The handful of letters he was allowed to send from the camp reflect the steadiness of his faith even in these final months. He reported that he had composed several new songs, calling them some of his best (although all these songs died with him). In one, he clarifies his own theological thinking: “The goal of a higher religion is a harmonious, strong, confident, active, creative, loving personality in harmony with itself, with nature, with humanity, and the spirit of all life. It should not be thought that God is incarnated in just one individual [Jesus].” Visionary and compelling. In Dachau, at hard labor, ten weeks before his death.

On October 12, 1942, Norbert Čapek was put on an “invalid transport” and taken to another site to be murdered by poison gas.

It may be apocryphal—it is nowhere mentioned in Richard Henry’s meticulously researched biography—but there is undoubtedly truth to the stories that came to say, there, in Dachau, Čapek celebrated his final Flower Communion. Inviting those many of his fellow prisoners who were drawn to him to find whatever bit of green or beauty, whatever glimpse of art or echo of life could be found in the prison yard, and to make a simple pile. No vase this time. Then to tell yet one more time about the inherent dignity of each of person, the grand and glorious reach of God into the human soul, and the joy—the true freedom—that is born of human community when care is genuine and love is real. And finally, to invite those gathered around him to retrieve some shabby bit from that motley pile, transfigured into priceless treasure.

This is where the essay “ought” to end. But I cannot quite let it rest there.

Today fascism is too much afoot right here. The targeting of voting rights, civil rights, human rights. The “capture” of courts by powers wholly opposed to justice. The ramping up of rhetoric that demonizes the humanity of others. And beyond this, the eclipse of any rational concern for the planet by lust for profit and foolhardy distraction. There is no telling how perilous the politics of our near future will be. Except for this telling: too perilous. There is no telling how damaged the planet’s system will be before we wake up. Except for this telling: too damaged.

And so, I end it here. The Flower Communion is such a simple ritual. Almost cute. But so much more. Unfazed by peril. Undaunted before damage. An unassuming ritual bearing beauty—and truth. We are priceless glory. Uniquely needy, uniquely gifted. We belong to one another. Creating community is birthing joy. In a perilous and damaged future, these truths may seem no stronger than a sprig of lilac. But I tell you, they are priceless treasure.

Source: Although I read a number of brief accounts of Čapek’s life and the Flower Communion on the internet, in this essay I relied extensively on Richard Henry’s authoritative biography, Norbert Fabián Čapek: A Spiritual Journey (Boston: Skinner House Books, 1999).

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, doing “public theology” around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in writing Community SupportedTheology at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.