Josef Hromádka (theologian, 1889)

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Josef Hromádka on April 14, 1951 during a visit to the main board of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (GDR)

Josef Lukl Hromádka (born June 8, 1889 in Hodslavice , Moravia , † December 26, 1969 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak Evangelical Lutheran theologian .

Life

Josef Hromádka was born the eldest son of a wealthy, decidedly Lutheran farmer and was destined to take over the farm. But even as a schoolboy he developed interests beyond agriculture. Then his father enabled him to attend high school in Valašské Meziříčí . From 1907 to 1911 he studied theology, first in Vienna, from 1909 in Basel with Bernhard Duhm and Paul Wernle , and finally in Heidelberg with Johannes Weiß and Ernst Troeltsch . In 1911 he passed the first theological exam ( Examen pro candidatura ) in Vienna and the second theological exam ( Examen pro ministerio ) in the same year . In the winter semester 1911/1912 he continued his studies at the college of the United Free Church of Scotland in Aberdeen. On September 8, 1912, he was ordained as an Evangelical Lutheran pastor. Then he was vicar in Vsetín . In 1917 he was charged with a dissertation on the religious philosophy of Tomáš Masaryk at the Charles University Dr. phil. PhD.

Hromádka campaigned for the union of Czech Reformed and Lutherans to form the Evangelical Church of the Bohemian Brothers , which was carried out at the end of 1918, and shaped the theology of the new United Church . Since 1919 he was pastor in Šonov in northeastern Bohemia. In 1920 he completed his habilitation at the Hus Faculty in Prague and in the same year received an extraordinary professorship for systematic theology , which he initially held alongside his pastoral office. In 1922 he gave up his pastoral office, in 1928 he became a full professor. Since then he has also been involved in ecumenism , initially within the framework of the Christian Student World Federation . In the 1930s he supported the Confessing Church in Germany and deepened his friendship with Karl Barth , whom he also met personally in 1935. Their correspondence about the Sudeten crisis in September 1938, in which both described military resistance against Hitler Germany as Christian, met with criticism in the Confessing Church. The German occupation forced Hromádka into exile in 1939. Thanks to the mediation of Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft he could leave with his family to Switzerland and took a visiting professor at the Theological Seminary of Princeton University . In 1947 he returned to his chair in Prague and served as dean of the now evangelical Comenius faculty (after the Czechoslovak Hussite Church had separated ) until his death.

Hromádka's theological path led via liberal theology to a close connection with the theology of Karl Barth and, after 1948, to an affirmation of real socialism based on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's program “Church for Others” . At the inaugural assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948, he gave a high-profile speech that long remained decisive for the social-ethical course of the WCC. He was elected to the central committee and served the WCC in other offices until 1968. In 1958 he founded the Christian Peace Conference . After the invasion of the Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact states , which he described as "the greatest tragedy of my life", he received no support at the Christian Peace Conference, which approved the invasion by a majority, and resigned from the presidency in November 1968.

Awards

Hromádka received the Order of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1954 and 1959 . In 1958 he was awarded the Řád práce and the International Lenin Peace Prize. The Reformed Theological Academy Debrecen awarded him an honorary doctorate .

Fonts

  • Masaryk's philosophy of religion and the foundations of scientific dogmatics . Prague 1920 (habilitation thesis, Hus Faculty Prague).
  • Katolicism a boj o křesťanství (Catholicism and the struggle for Christianity). Bursík a Kohout, Prague 1925 (Czech).
  • Jan Karafiát . Nákladem Synodního výboru Českobratrské církve evangelické, Prague 1927 (Czech).
  • Cesty protestantského theologa (Paths of a Protestant Theologian). Nákladem V. Horáka, Prague 1927 (Czech).
  • Masaryk . YMCA, Prague 1930 (Czech).
  • Masaryk as European . Prague 1936 (English).
  • Doom and Resurrection . SCM Press, Richmond 1944.
    • German edition: Jump over the wall . Vogt, Berlin 1961.
  • Church and theology in the upheaval of the present A Czechoslovak contribution to ecumenical discussions . Ecumenical Council of Churches in Czechoslovakia, Prague 1956 (second edition: Reich, Hamburg-Bergstedt 1961).
    • English edition: The Church and Theology in Today's Troubled Times . Prague 1956.
  • Theology Between Yesterday and Tomorrow . Westminster Press, Philadelphia 1957
    • German edition: Theology and Church between yesterday and tomorrow . Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen 1960.
  • Gospel for atheists . Vogt, Berlin 1958 (with an afterword by Karl Barth ) and other editions.
  • From the Reformation to tomorrow . Koehler and Amelang, Leipzig 1959.
  • The Gospel on the way to man . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1961 (edition for the FRG: Luther-Verlag, Witten 1963).
  • On the threshold of the dialogue between Christians and Marxists . VOB Union Verlag, Berlin 1964 (edition for the FRG: Voice publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1965).
  • Save man! Peace is possible. Memorandum for the 3rd All-Christian Peace Assembly . Young Church, Dortmund 1968.
  • The gospel is breaking new ground. Sermons, reflections, lectures and essays from the years 1948–1961 . Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1968.
  • My life between east and west . Theological Publishing House, Zurich 1971, ISBN 3-290-11266-7 .
  • See history in the face. Evangelical and political interpretations of reality , selected and edited by Martin Stöhr . Kaiser, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-459-01100-9 .

swell

  • Martin Rohkrämer (Ed.): Friendship in contradiction. Karl Barth's correspondence with Josef L. Hromadka and JB Souček 1935–1968 . Theological Publishing House, Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-290-10948-8 .

literature

in order of appearance

  • Rudolf Rican: Josef L. Hromadka . Berlin (GDR) 1959.
  • Josef Smolík : The Church in the Secular World. On the theology of JL Hromadka. In: Evangelische Theologie 22 (1962), pp. 358–379 (reprint in: Ders .: Erbe im heute. Collected essays on church history, practical theology and ecumenics. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1982, pp. 47–67).
  • Ch. C. West: Josef Lukl Hromadka - Theology and Ideology . In: Hugh T. Kerr (Ed.): Sons of the Prophets. Leaders in Protestantism from Princeton Seminary . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1963.
  • Milan Machovec : Marxism and Dialectical Theology. Barth, Bonhoeffer and Hromadka from an atheist-communist perspective . Zurich 1965.
  • Hans Ruh : Josef L. Hromadka . In: Hans Jürgen Schultz (ed.): Tendencies of theology in the twentieth century . Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart and Olten 1966.
  • SP Schilling: Josef L. Hromadka . In: Contemporary Continental Theologians . Nashville 1966.
  • JB Jeschke: Josef L. Hromadka as a preacher and pastor. In: Josef Hromadka: The Gospel breaks new ground . Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1968.
  • Josef Smolík (Ed.): From Amsterdam to Prague. An ecumenical gift to Prof. D. Josef L. Hromádka . Reich, Hamburg-Bergstedt 1969.
  • Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka. Theology and Politics in the Context of Current Events . Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-459-00907-1 .
  • Günter Wirth : Josef L. Hromadka . Berlin 1977.
  • Milan Opočenský : Josef L. Hromadka . In: Martin Greschat (Ed.): Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte . Vol. 10,2: The newest time IV. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1986, pp. 163-175.
  • Susanne Höser: Theological reflection and political action Josef L. Hromádkas (1947–1969). Diss. Rostock 1989.
  • Thomas Uecker, Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Josef Hromádka (theologian, 1889). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1093-1095.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Josef Smolík: Josef L. Hromádka and the Prague Peace Conference . In: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte , ISSN  0932-9951 , Jg. 4 (1991), pp. 177-187.
  • Wieland Zademach : Bridge builders between East and West. Memory of Josef L. Hromádka . In: Neue Ways , Vol. 93 (1999), Issue 6, pp. 166-175; Reprinted in: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , year 2002.
  • Martin Stöhr :  Hromádka, Josef Lukl . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 3, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2000, Sp. 1917.

Web links

Commons : Josef Hromádka  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 33.
  2. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 35.
  3. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 36.
  4. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 38.
  5. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 40.
  6. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, pp. 40-42.
  7. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 42.
  8. ^ Dorothea Neumärker: Josef L. Hromádka . Munich 1974, p. 52.
  9. ^ Milan Opočenský: Josef L. Hromadka . In: Martin Greschat (Ed.): Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte . Vol. 10,2: The newest time IV. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1986, pp. 163-175, here 167.
  10. ↑ Josef Hromádka in Spiegel 1/1970 of January 5, 1970, accessed on April 14, 2014


personal data
SURNAME Hromádka, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hromádka, Josef Lukl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech clergyman, Evangelical Lutheran theologian
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Hodslavice , Moravia
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1969
Place of death Prague