Bohuslav Pospíšil

Bohuslav Pospíšil (born January 26, 1905 , † October 14, 1959 in Prague ) was a Czech Protestant theologian of the Evangelical Church of the Bohemian Brethren .

Life

Bohuslav Pospíšil was born the son of simple farmers in a central Bohemian village. Because his father died early, he had a difficult youth. After the First World War he studied at the newly founded Protestant Hus Faculty in Prague. Josef Hromádka and the professor of Old Testament Slavomil Ctibor Daněk became his teachers. When he was studying in Zurich , he came into contact with Leonhard Ragaz . After a few years as a vicar in the village, Pospíšil became a religious teacher at Prague grammar schools . During this time the contact with Daněk became very close. He developed into its theological assistant. After Danek's death in 1946, he worked on the side of Hromádka.

Pospíšil, who was always concerned with correct and precise theological thinking, was also the one who wanted to win over the representatives of the various theological currents in world Christianity for a community of action on the question of peace. He kept reminding us that there was no theological exclusivity on this question. At the First Prague Christian Peace Conference in 1958, he gave a passionate vote for Albert Schweitzer .

As director of the Ecumenical Institute of the Prague Comenius Faculty and secretary of the World Council of Churches in CSR , one of his tasks was to organize and attend meetings and hold discussions. In this sense, Pospíšil responded in his lecture at the Evangelical Pastors' Day in Erfurt in May 1959 to the question of what position the church should take on the problem of peace, initially with the sentence: "No talking and discussing with those who are just us want to lead in fruitless debates, but do something. "

When Pospíšil was thrown onto the sick bed in the summer of 1959, from which he was no longer to rise, he had just finished the work that had also been published in the GDR. And so stood at his grave churchmen and theologians not only from the CSR, but also from Hungary and Poland , from the Soviet Union and the two German states.

Carl Ordinance writes in the daily newspaper of the GDR CDU, Neue Zeit :

“ In an essay on Slavomil Danek, Dr. Pospíšil called his teacher as a theologian who did his work in close connection with his church and was actually a witness of this church. Professor Danek was said to have been "theologian and witness", "because he was not on the periphery of the church, but in its center and was therefore able to answer its central questions." What Bohuslav Pospíšil writes about his teacher here applies equally to himself. "

Pospíšil was passionate about celebrating " Hiroshima Day" every year on August 6th (or on one of the two Sundays associated with this date) . It is reported with what joy and at the same time emotion he took note of the news that reached him about the conduct of this day on the sickbed. This "Hiroshima Day" was already celebrated in 1959 in many churches.

Honors

• In May 1959, the Reformed Theological Academy of Debrecen recognized his services with the award of an honorary theological doctorate

Works

• The Prague Christian Peace Conference (published by the central training center of the CDU “Otto Nuschke” in conjunction with the party leadership of the Christian-Democratic Union), = booklets from Burgscheidungen No. 33.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carl Order, "Neue Zeit", October 31, 1959