The Story of Norbert Čapek's Flower Ceremony

His mother was a devout Catholic, his father agnostic. He became an acolyte at age 10, in 1890 at St. Martin’s Catholic Church. In the years that followed, he became disillusioned: his priest was a cynic.

At 18, apprenticed to his uncle, a successful tailor in Vienna, Norbert discovered the Baptists and became a minister. He founded almost a dozen churches from Ukraine to Budapest.

Yet, slowly, his faith became more and more liberal.

He left Bohemia under government threat and accepted a call to serve a Baptist church in New York City… until one day in 1919. That day, he wrote in his diary: “I cannot be a Baptist anymore, even in compromise. The fire of new desires, new worlds, is burning inside me.”