Addendum to Part 1 (Irena Kuželová) on Xian Hope
Quick note to follow up on my blog post this week about Irena Kuželová, the now deceased female pastor of a Moravian Brethren congregation in Prague.
I've done a wee bit of research since my post -- just out of curiosity. The church she pastored seems to have closed up shop. There is a new congregation on the western side of the city. This new church seems to be youth-oriented. You can see their website to get a feel.
At any rate, it appears that Mrs. Kuželová's name appears on a list of state informers from the days of Communism. These lists of "StB informers" were highly inflammatory, showing the breadth of the state security's reach. Neighborhoods, families and workplaces were in shock to see the names of people they never suspected of being informants.
Many people were forced to show one-time cooperation in order to be granted certain privileges. Estimates in East Germany were that 30% of the population had been informers. In Czechoslovakia it was lower, though still perhaps as high as 10%. And some of the listings were apparently false, put down on paper by agents who wanted to pad the lists of people they had forced into collaboration. It's hard to figure.
Regardless, Mrs. Kuželová is likely far from a perfect person. And her work as a pastor was in an era of extreme difficulty. Her congregation is now defunct. Yet still, I remember that conversation in her living room when she encouraged me to listen more to the voice of Karl Barth than Rudolf Bultmann (German theologians from the early 20th century). She was a woman who may have been compromised but who clearly loved the Lord and whose path to salvation was an example of how important individual relationships are.
I've done a wee bit of research since my post -- just out of curiosity. The church she pastored seems to have closed up shop. There is a new congregation on the western side of the city. This new church seems to be youth-oriented. You can see their website to get a feel.
At any rate, it appears that Mrs. Kuželová's name appears on a list of state informers from the days of Communism. These lists of "StB informers" were highly inflammatory, showing the breadth of the state security's reach. Neighborhoods, families and workplaces were in shock to see the names of people they never suspected of being informants.
Many people were forced to show one-time cooperation in order to be granted certain privileges. Estimates in East Germany were that 30% of the population had been informers. In Czechoslovakia it was lower, though still perhaps as high as 10%. And some of the listings were apparently false, put down on paper by agents who wanted to pad the lists of people they had forced into collaboration. It's hard to figure.
Regardless, Mrs. Kuželová is likely far from a perfect person. And her work as a pastor was in an era of extreme difficulty. Her congregation is now defunct. Yet still, I remember that conversation in her living room when she encouraged me to listen more to the voice of Karl Barth than Rudolf Bultmann (German theologians from the early 20th century). She was a woman who may have been compromised but who clearly loved the Lord and whose path to salvation was an example of how important individual relationships are.
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