What Does Christian Hope Look Like? (part 1: Irena Kuželová)
About 15 years ago I visited a distinguished woman named Irena Kuželová, the preacher for the only remaining Moravian Brethren congregation in Prague, Czech Republic. Very few Moravian Brethren congregations (Unitas Fratrum) survived Communism in the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia. This one church in Prague was small and mostly populated by retirees.
Though battling with cancer, Mrs. Kuželová was still working in mininstry. Her husband was in poor health. She herself could have retired, but she chose to stay on in the belief that her work mattered.
On a visit to her home she described to me her difficult path to ministry and her concern for the religious situation in the Czech Republic. She grew up in the First Republic, as Czechs call it, the period of independence and prosperity for Czechoslovakia (1918-1938). Under the leadership of Tomas G Masaryk, the Czechoslovak GDP grew to the 5th largest in the world.
In those days of hope, a dream started to grow within her. Her parents were not Christians and did not participate in church life. But a neighboring preacher took Irena and her brother to a weekly Bible class for years. She proudly told me that she began to picture herself as a minister even at the young age of 4.
Mrs. Kuželová was the first woman to enter theological studies in the Moravian Brethren denomination. Her initial intention was to minister to women and children. But when the issue of female clergy gained prominence in some denominations in the late 1940s, she shifted her plans to becoming a preacher. Though she completed all her theological studies and had the necessary requirements for ordinantion, she was not ordained as a pastor until 1972. That was the year when the Moravian Brethren denomination began to ordain female preachers in Czechoslovakia.
Becoming a preacher in communist Czechoslovakia allowed little room for celebration. Her children and her church suffered enormous pressure and religious persecution. The communist regime frowned upon religious devotion. Church attendance was noted in a person's files, and many younger people ceased coming to church to avoid controversy. Pastors underwent even greater trials. As a reprisal against her commitment to the church, the government did not allow her younger son to attend university.
Mrs. Kuželová thought that the religious situation in the Czech Republic [in 1993] was not much better than it had been under Communism. Her church had seen no growth since the revolution, and weekly attendance amounted to a handful of retirees exhibiting little enthusiasm or optimism. While congregations like hers were slowly dying, she bemoaned the fact that other “growing churches” were preaching emotion and pentecostalism rather than the gospel.
Toward the end of our visit I wanted to know what words of advice she could offer to me, a new missionary in Prague at that time. Hoping for insight, I asked her how she would feel about American missionaries coming to Prague and focusing on the gospel. She replied, “We don’t know that kind, but they would be welcome.”
I regret that we didn't work with this woman of grace and hope. Here is a woman whose life & family tree was forever changed by the invitation of one person. Here is a woman who put her faith first and stood by it in spite of hardship from her government and even her own denomination. What kind of hope must propel this kind of woman? How does this woman display the Christian hope?
Though battling with cancer, Mrs. Kuželová was still working in mininstry. Her husband was in poor health. She herself could have retired, but she chose to stay on in the belief that her work mattered.
On a visit to her home she described to me her difficult path to ministry and her concern for the religious situation in the Czech Republic. She grew up in the First Republic, as Czechs call it, the period of independence and prosperity for Czechoslovakia (1918-1938). Under the leadership of Tomas G Masaryk, the Czechoslovak GDP grew to the 5th largest in the world.
In those days of hope, a dream started to grow within her. Her parents were not Christians and did not participate in church life. But a neighboring preacher took Irena and her brother to a weekly Bible class for years. She proudly told me that she began to picture herself as a minister even at the young age of 4.
Mrs. Kuželová was the first woman to enter theological studies in the Moravian Brethren denomination. Her initial intention was to minister to women and children. But when the issue of female clergy gained prominence in some denominations in the late 1940s, she shifted her plans to becoming a preacher. Though she completed all her theological studies and had the necessary requirements for ordinantion, she was not ordained as a pastor until 1972. That was the year when the Moravian Brethren denomination began to ordain female preachers in Czechoslovakia.
Becoming a preacher in communist Czechoslovakia allowed little room for celebration. Her children and her church suffered enormous pressure and religious persecution. The communist regime frowned upon religious devotion. Church attendance was noted in a person's files, and many younger people ceased coming to church to avoid controversy. Pastors underwent even greater trials. As a reprisal against her commitment to the church, the government did not allow her younger son to attend university.
Mrs. Kuželová thought that the religious situation in the Czech Republic [in 1993] was not much better than it had been under Communism. Her church had seen no growth since the revolution, and weekly attendance amounted to a handful of retirees exhibiting little enthusiasm or optimism. While congregations like hers were slowly dying, she bemoaned the fact that other “growing churches” were preaching emotion and pentecostalism rather than the gospel.
Toward the end of our visit I wanted to know what words of advice she could offer to me, a new missionary in Prague at that time. Hoping for insight, I asked her how she would feel about American missionaries coming to Prague and focusing on the gospel. She replied, “We don’t know that kind, but they would be welcome.”
I regret that we didn't work with this woman of grace and hope. Here is a woman whose life & family tree was forever changed by the invitation of one person. Here is a woman who put her faith first and stood by it in spite of hardship from her government and even her own denomination. What kind of hope must propel this kind of woman? How does this woman display the Christian hope?
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