"The problem was that we met, it's called Libštát. It was a meeting of pastors who wanted to be in touch, talk about everything, a lot, also about politics. It was evangelicals, the Czech Brethren Evangelical Church, people like [Svatopluk] Karásek, [Miloš] Rejchrt et al., who organized it. It took place once a year at someone´s place, from Sunday evening to Monday evening. It also had a kind of sacral part. Someone had a sermon, a religious service. The people who were studying had lectures on who is interested in what. In the evening and during the day, with wine, beer, we talked mainly about politics. Some were already without consent. They went there with us too. Other pastors… There were also a lot of female pastors. It was called Libštát, because in one case it took place in Libštát in the Krkonoše region. Because of the denunciation of the then church secretary, the police raided us, they surrounded us. God knows what they thought was happening there. They searched everything. But it had no consequences. It was just a friendly meeting of pastors who know each other from the faculty."
"My passport was confiscated immediately. I thought it would be all right that if I had an American wife now, I would go visit her family. In 1974, we planned to go there. So, I asked for an exit clause, but they wrote back that I have to come with a passport. So, I arrived with the passport and they immediately took my passport and they already had a piece of paper ready, a confirmation of the confiscation of the travel document. That they have to investigate the whole thing. Then I received a notice in the mail that it was not in the state interest for me to hold a passport. That was such a punishment. Then they told me, look, if you want to leave with your wife, we won't stop you. But to travel with her back and forth… She could travel with children. But they didn't want to let me go."
Petr Macek, a theologian and a former pastor of the Baptist Brotherhood, was born on May 21, 1944 in Prague. His parents came from the countryside and met in the Salvation Army, where his father also worked as a gatekeeper. Petr Macek trained as a metal engraver, he studied remotely at the Václav Hollar Art School and later at the SVVŠ. During his adolescence, he was a member of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, and later joined the Brotherhood of Baptists. The activities of the Baptist church led him to study English and to become interested in theology. In 1968, at the Baptist Congress in Bern, he met his future wife, an american lady Harriet Gilbert. He studied theology at the Comenius Evangelical Faculty and in 1973 he became the pastor of the Na Topolce Baptist Church in Prague 4. At that time, the Baptist Church in Czechoslovakia strived to become a party to political events, but the activities of the Na Topolce Church were different. Petr Mack’s sermons were often attended by dissidents from other areas, he organized seminars on spiritual education, the so-called “meeting of the thirties”, and in 1988 Na Topolce enabled the establishment of the Underground University of Czech Studies. In 1990, he went with his family to the United States for a year, and upon his return he engaged in theological, authorial, and pedagogical activities. He is the head of the Department of Practical Theology of the Evangelical Faculty of Theology.
