Holy Week 2011 proved to be very eventful and, to be chronologically correct, I really should have written and posted this article before writing and posting about the Royal Wedding. Therefore, before we get too much further into the fifty days of the Easter season, here is a short illustrated résumé.
On Monday 18th April, Sybille & I attended an evening concert given by the ecumenical choir Naši pevci who were the choir that participated in our service entitled ‘On the Feast of Stephen’, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 26th December 2010. The concert took place in Kostel Salvátor, which like the Church building in which the St. Clement’s Anglican congregation worship, also belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.
The concert celebrated the life and work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer and therefore featured works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn. But to celebrate that part of his life spent as a medical missionary in Gabon, there was also African singing and dancing, performed by Nsango Malamu. In between each item, the life story of Dr. Schweitzer was narrated, unfortunately only in Czech. The photograph shows both Naši pevci and Nsango Malamu receiving the applause of a packed Church at the end of the concert.
On Tuesday 19th April, I attended the annual Chrism Eucharist which took place in the Old Catholic Cathedral on Petrin Hill, overlooking the centre of Prague. At this service, the oils used to anoint candidates for baptism, confirmation and for anointing the sick, are blessed. The service was presided over by my Czech boss, Bishop Dušan Hejbal. After the service, as well as being served some very enjoyable refreshments, I finally managed to get a good photo of the two of us together.
Wednesday 20th April is probably best described as ‘media day’. As Karen, one of my most faithful commenters, has already pointed out in a previous comment, ‘The Prague Post’ that day published a feature article about me. This was the outcome of an interview I had given to their reporter Lisette Allen, a few weeks earlier. The original printed version contained two factual mistakes, together with a typo. I’m pleased to say that all three have now been corrected in the online version which you can access here.
Then in the afternoon came the phone call that I’ve already described in my previous post, inviting me to appear on Czech TV as part of their coverage of the Royal Wedding. And the Wednesday of Holy Week was also the day that we finally managed to bypass Czech bureaucracy and, much to Sybille’s pleasure, were allowed to adopt a dog! But that story requires another post!
The photograph above is of the imposing statue of Jan Hus, located in Staromestské námestí/Old Town Square, in the centre of Prague. It is the work of the Czech sculptor Ladislav Jan Šaloun and was unveiled in 1915 to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of Hus who was burnt at the stake on 6th July 1415.
Jan Hus was born around 1369 in the village of Husinec in South Bohemia. At a young age he moved to Prague, becoming a student at Charles University. He gained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1393, his Master degree in 1396 and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1400.
The building in Prague most associated with Hus is the Bethlehem Chapel. The original Chapel, completed in 1394, was built for the express purpose of the service of preaching rather than for the celebration of mass. In 1402, Hus was appointed Rector of the Bethlehem Chapel and took up residence in rooms immediately adjoining the Chapel
Over the following ten years, the preaching of Jan Hus drew large crowds to the Bethlehem Chapel. He was very much influenced by the teaching and writings of the early English Church Reformer John Wycliffe, and in his preaching, called for reform within the Roman Catholic Church. He was particularly outraged by the selling of papal indulgences to collect funds for military purposes.
However, there are two significant things which Hus did or advocated which are reflected in the way he is now remembered by most Czech people. Firstly, he preached and wrote in Czech rather than Latin as he wanted his hearers and readers to fully understand what he was saying. Secondly, he wanted worshippers to be able to receive communion in both kinds – both bread and wine – and for lay people not to be forbidden to receive the chalice.
After a papal edict of September 1412, prevented Hus from preaching in Prague, he withdrew to the South Bohemian countryside where he continued to preach under the open skies and where he also completed most of his writings. In October 1414, having been assured of safe passage, he travelled to Konstanz to attend a Church Council which had been called to resolve a variety divisive issues within the Church at that time including the existence of three different individuals each claiming to be Pope! However, as part of the proceedings of the Council of Konstanz, Jan Hus was tried, found guilty of heresy and condemned to death. He was burnt at the stake in Konstanz on 6th July 1415.
The supporters of Hus were outraged and the Hussite movement flourished following his death, bringing about the Bohemian Reformation. Sadly, there were divisions between those who desired moderate reform and those who wanted far more radical change within the Church. Eventually in 1620, at the Battle of White Mountain/Bilá hora on the outskirts of Prague, the army of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II defeated the forces of the Bohemian Estates and as a result, unreformed Roman Catholicism was reimposed upon Czech lands.
The Czech National Revival, which began in the late eighteenth century, regarded Hus as a Czech hero, not primarily for religious reasons but rather for political and cultural ones. His opposition to church control by the Vatican gave strength to those who opposed control of Czech lands by the Hapsburgs in the form of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He preached and wrote in the Czech language and therefore was a focus for opposition to the Germanisation of government, education and culture in Bohemia and Moravia. Therefore the statue of Hus located in Staromestské námestí/Old Town Square, in the centre of Prague, is surrounded by figures of victorious Hussite warriors and the figure of a young mother symbolizing national rebirth.
The Bethlehem Chapel fell into a dilapidated state and was partially demolished in 1786. Three original walls remained standing within which a sizable apartment building was constructed in the 1830s. Following the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1918, there were moves by the new government to purchase the apartment complex and restore the Chapel. But nothing concrete ever materialised before the outbreak of World War Two.
At the end of the war in 1945, the apartment building was confiscated from its German owners and, between 1950 – 1954, the Bethlehem Chapel was restored with considerable care to its original form. Ironically this took place under the guidance of a Communist run Ministry of Culture. But even the Communists used the legacy of Jan Hus for their own purposes by portraying him as a proto-communist!
Inside the chapel, the earlier inscriptions on the walls have been restored on the basis of known texts with associated illustrations, as in this photograph. However, this second wall painting was not in the original chapel as it shows Hus being burnt at the stake!
All Czech Protestants also remember and celebrate Jan Hus and the symbol they use to do this is the chalice. This is because of Hus insisting that all Christian believers should receive communion in both kinds.
The picture on the left is of an Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren Church building in the Prague suburb of Žižkov. It too is called the Bethlehem Chapel/Betlémská kaple and was constructed in the cubist architectural style. On the left of the front façade is a bust of Jan Hus whilst on the right is a bust of John Calvin. But as can be seen in close-up detail below, above the front façade are a Bible and, on top of the Bible, a large gold chalice.
The photograph above is of a plaque on the outside of St. Clement’s Church which also belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. Like to statue in Old Town Square, this plaque was also erected on the 500th anniversary of the death of Jan Hus. With his picture, together with a chalice, thanks are given for ‘Svaté pameti otce Ceské Reformace – the holy memory of the Father of the Czech Reformation’.
St. Clement’s Church, Prague, where the English-speaking Anglican congregation worship, does not belong to us – it belongs to the Ceskobratrské Cíckve Evangelické / the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. They are a joint Lutheran/Reformed Church and by far the largest protestant grouping in the Czech Republic. The CCE have their service at 09.30 each Sunday – we therefore have ours at 11.00. We pay them a very modest rent for the use of their Church building.
Over the past few weeks, the CCE have arranged for the various exterior doors of the Church building to be taken down, one pair at a time, so that they can be taken away and renovated. Initially it was the west doors, ones which we rarely use. Then it was the south doors, the entrance our congregation normally do use. Now the south doors are back, the external vestry door has been taken away & that entrance temporarily blocked up.
The company carrying out the renovation are clearly keen that both people walking past the Church, and those who worship there, should know who is carrying out the restoration work on the doors. And so they have made a board which has been erected in front of each entrance to the Church, whilst the doors for that particular entrance have been missing. Realising that an English-speaking congregation also use the Church, somebody in the hierarchy of Restaurátorské Dílny Zbraslav S. R. O. obviously decided that this notice should not only be in Czech but also in English. But as you can see – it isn’t in English. It is in Czenglish!!!!!
Czech speakers are extremely quick to correct any foreigner who fails to decline a noun or adjective correctly when trying to speak Czech. Yet many of those self-same people regularly make an absolute shambolic mess of the English language, reproducing their various mistakes in menus and notices like this one, with absolutely no realisation of how ridiculous their attempts at written English actually read and sound.
Therefore, for the benefit of the management of Restaurátorské Dílny Zbraslav S. R. O., and for any other Czech person reading this blog post, ‘Restore works on this object are made by’ is completely incorrect English! ‘Restoration work on these doors is being undertaken by’ or ‘Work to restore these doors is being carried out by’ is what should have appeared on this notice. One simple phone call to me would have been all that was required for Restaurátorské Dílny Zbraslav S. R. O. to avoid appearing absolutely stupid.
Can someone please explain to me why so many Czech people are so unwilling to ask a native English-speaker to check their English text before putting it into print? If you really want to make an impact on English-speakers, please try writing in English and not in Czenglish!
Today, Saturday 19th September 2009, is a significant date. It marks the first anniversary of my arrival in the Czech Republic, together with my wife Sybille and Oscar the cat. In the late afternoon of Friday 19th September 2008, we arrived outside our Chaplaincy flat in Prague 6, at the end of a two day, 885 miles/1416 km drive across six countries + an English Channel ferry crossing. One year on, I’ve spent the last few days doing a little bit of reflection about how I feel about the move and all that has happened these past twelve months.
Firstly, I have no regrets about making the move. Fifteen and a half years was long enough to spend looking after ten Churches in North Oxfordshire. If I’m honest, probably two or three years longer than I would have wanted to be there. But God has his timings and I am convinced now, difficult though it was at the time, that it was worth waiting for the right move even though I had to wait more than two years and several interviews before being appointed to a new post. I’m also pleased that, nearly twelve months after I left, my former parishes finally have a new Rector. May she, (Yes – I’ve been suceeded by a lady!) take those parishes forward, building on what, under God, I and my Ministry Team colleagues, began.
Secondly, it is wonderful to no longer have responsibility for ten mediaeval Church buildings and their associated churchyards. Despite what so many people think, the Church is not a building or even an organisation. Rather, it is the people of God. Of course, mediaeval Church buildings do speak of God – they are holy stones and places where people do find space to be quiet and to pray and to worship. And I’m not a Philistine – such buildings need to be maintained and preserved. However, sometimes the conservation lobby needs to be reminded that Churches were built for Christian worship which should remain their prime purpose, rather than insisting that they become museums to the whims of the way Victorians thought they should look.
Here in Prague, the building we worship in isn’t ours – it belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren Ceskobratrské Církve Evangelické. The CCE are a joint Lutheran – Reformed denomination formed in 1918 and are by far the largest protestant grouping in the Czech Republic. Their congregation meet for worship at 9.30am each Sunday hence our service is at 11am. We pay them a modest rent for the use of their Church building and the facilities at Klimentská 18. In 2008, this amounted to around 48,000 Kc (about £1,600.00). As a result, we have no heating or electricity bills, no building insurance to pay, and no building repairs and maintenance to have to be concerned about. Instead, we can get on with being ‘Church’ without any concerns for the Church building.
However, just occasionally I do get frustrated at not owning our own Church building. Back in May when a member of the congregation died, it took two whole days before I could get confirmation from our hosts, that I could have the use of the Church building for a particular time and date in order to conduct a funeral service. The next of kin were left in complete limbo whereas, back in Oxfordshire, I could have immediately confirmed a date and time without reference to anyone else.
More recently, when our Sunday School was due to resume meeting on Sunday 6th September after the summer break, we discovered on the day, that our Sunday School room in Klimentská 18 was unavailable. Our hosts hadn’t thought to tell us earlier! But these minor irritations aside, to be able to spend time and energy on people rather than buildings, is a great joy.
What lies ahead? That is a big question. There is a saying amongst clergy that when you move to a new parish or situation, “The first year you can’t do anything wrong – the second year, you can’t do anything right!” So far, people have, almost without exception, been very supportive. But I’m about to enter my second year……! Watch this space!!!!
On Tuesday 17th, I returned to the flat from our Breakfast Study Group & visiting a family who had enquired about the baptism of their child, to a request that I return a phone call from a retired Pastor of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.
The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren are a united Lutheran/Reformed Church and are by far the largest Protestant denomination in the Czech Republic. Once I got through, the retired Pastor asked me what I knew about the Anglican Church building in Mariánské lázne and about a person who claimed to be the Anglican Bishop of the Czech Republic and was conducting services there.
Mariánské lázne is a spa town in the far west of the Czech Republic, near to the German border. Better known in the past, by its German name of Marienbad, it was very popular with the upper classes of various European countries in the second half of the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries. King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, was one of many Britons who visited to ‘take the waters’. An Anglican Church was built there and opened in 1879. It remained in use for Anglican worship until sometime in the 1920/30s and following the communist takeover in 1948, was confiscated by the state. After the fall of communism in 1989, some limited financial compensation was agreed and paid into the accounts of the Prague Anglican Episcopal Congregation. These funds partly helped pay the deposit on the flat that Sybille & I live in. The Church building now belongs to the local council in Mariánské lázne who has restored it to good order and use it as a small concert venue & gallery.
All this I told the retired Pastor and he agreed that this was his understanding too. However, one of his colleagues in Mariánské lázne, had been in touch with him regarding someone calling himself the Anglican Bishop of the Czech Republic, who since the summer of 2008 had been holding services in Mariánské lázne, using the former Anglican Church building. What did I know about him?
This information immediately rang bells. Back in October 2008, we had a similar report from a member of an Anglican congregation in Switzerland. Unfortunately at that time, we were given a partially incorrect name and could not discover anything more. But now I had his full name, The Rt. Rev’d Dr. Edwin Wagner. And aided by that helpful friend called Google, a clearer picture emerged, even allowing for the fact that quite a bit of the material was in Czech.
Edwin Wagner is Episcopi vagantes –this Wikipedia article will explain. He belongs to an exceedingly small group who style themselves ‘Traditional Church of England’. Typical of such groups, they have four ‘bishops’ and only five other ‘clergy’. The expression ‘too many Chiefs and not enough Indians’ comes to mind. According to their website, they seek to ‘continue the best Anglican traditions and values’. Yet a few lines later they state that this includes the use of the Roman Catholic English Missal!!!!
In Mariánské lázne, Edwin Wagner has taken full advantage of the fact that a historic restored building is still known as ‘The Anglican Church,’ even though it hasn’t been used for Anglican worship for over seventy years. It was only when his delusions of grandeur got the better of him and he claimed that, what is a publicly owned concert hall and gallery, had now been upgraded to the status of a Pro-Cathedral, that the local clergy began to smell a rat, eventually leading to the phone enquiry of ten days ago.
Last Saturday, we drove the 100 miles/160 km out to Mariánské lázne to investigate for ourselves. The small town is beautifully situated in a wooded valley and had recently experienced a quite heavy snowfall. And after the years of communist neglect, many of the wonderful late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings have been restored to their former glory. Walking the streets, we heard more German being spoken than Czech with many day or weekend visitors from across the nearby border.
We found the ‘Anglican Church’ but were disappointed to read a notice on the door stating ‘Im Winter geschlossen’ and similarly in Czech. Likewise, there were no notices about Church services conducted by Edwin Wagner. This rather confirmed the information we had been given that he had not been seen around the town by the other Christian ministers since just before Christmas.
A few days ago, I decided to bite the bullet and rang the mobile phone number given for Edwin Wagner on the ‘Traditional Church of England’ website. He answered in person and I asked whether he was still holding Church services in Mariánské lázne. He told me that they were to resume in a couple of weeks time in the same building. I challenged him about calling his services ‘Church of England’ or ‘Anglican’, and he claimed in reply that he makes it clear that he is “not in communion with the see of Canterbury”. But if you look at this website, the German description ‘Die Anglikanische Kirche’ is used. My wife, who is a native German speaker, says that any German speaker reading that would inevitably understand that as being the Church of England. Likewise, I have sufficient Czech to know that any Czech person reading ‘Anglikánská cirkev’ would also understand that as meaning the Church of England. All he has done is put the letters ‘TCE’ on his publicity, with no explanation whatsoever as to what they stand for.
Now the Christian ministers and the Town Council in Mariánské lázne know that Edwin Wagner isn’t an Anglican Bishop in the sense of being a bishop in the mainstream Church of England, I think he might find it more difficult to resume his activities. But the whole affair has left me feeling very sad that an individual has been practising what is effectively a form of deception in the name of the Christian Church. I also felt that the response I received from the retired Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren Pastor was very pertinent. He thanked me for my detective work for which he was most grateful. But he concluded, “This is one of the troublesome realities of our time, that in spite of large secularisation and the small number of Christians in contemporary Europe, they still split and form further and further denominations. This is a reality even in the Czech speaking community”.
Update – 18th October 2010
Early in 2010, I discovered that Edwin Wagner was no longer in Mariánské lázne but was now living in Desborough, Northamptonshire, England. I believe he moved there in August/September 2009. According to the ‘Traditional Church of England’ website, he is leading a TCE congregation there. I have found no way to verify whether this is the case or not.
Then in June 2010, I received an angry letter from Dr. Wagner, claiming that I had ‘written and posted a libellous article on the internet’ about him. He gave no indication as to where on the internet this article was to be found and the internet is rather a large place! The letter threatened me with legal action through the English courts if I didn’t ‘make a public retraction and publicly apologise’.
It seemed fairly clear to me that Dr. Wagner had not actually read my blog post, (which I presumed he was referring to), but had only heard about it second-hand. His letter accused me of saying a number of things which are not in the text above. On 23rd June 2010, I wrote him a long reply, addressing all the issues he raised. In the meantime, I temporarily took down the post with a view to making one or two minor amendments to it. When I then received a phone call from him saying he would be coming to Prague in August & would like to arrange to meet me, I decided to refrain from re-posting until we had finally met.
In August, I received an email from Dr. Wagner saying that, because of family circumstances, his Prague visit would now be in September. I replied saying I would still be very happy to meet him in September as long as he avoided the dates of the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod when I would be in Vienna. I have heard nothing further from him since.
Therefore, I am re-posting the original article in a slightly amended form, together with this update. The small number of changes I have incorporated are simply to give greater clarity to what I originally wrote.
