Mgr. Petr Čapek

“We were not in touch with him later, he was busy travelling around the world, this was the Christian Peace Conference. Which is a topic of its own, because it was him who opened the door to Europe in the 1950s. Martin Niemöller was here, the famous theologian and submarine captain in WWI and a member of the Confessing Church, so when he arrived in Prague and preached at the St Martin in the Wall, it was a real event – that is in the closed world, or Hans Joachim Iwand, an important theologian was here, and other, Helmuth Gollwitzer, this was much appreciated, as it seemed that the door of the time of unfreedom was opening. But it is true that the Christian Peace Conference deviated in the Eastern direction. And this was something we could not agree with as students.“

“He had this study where there was nothing, just a table and a few things, but then there was this second room with many books. Unfortunately, towards the end of his life he could not use the books as his eyesight was very weak, to it was the source of much sadness to him, about which he wrote to some of his friends. I came to him, he was not much interested in the talks, he invited me to come to his weekend cottage, but I did not dare to disturb him. But I had the five six lectures in our circle, this is written on that paper I drafted and was about Mácha. He read his poems, or someone else, when his eyesight worsened. And naturally about Florian and Zahradníček. Definitely about Zahradníček. So… about his dad, the printing shop, breaking of that printing shop and his brethren. These were beautiful evenings and he even had the courage to go to the parsonage, I do not like to say this, but it put those people in danger. From the cops, I mean.“