Born April 8, 1888; Died December 2, 1966
Reprinted with permission from the 1997 "Liberating Lives" calendar of the Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society, 2 Elm Street, Malden, MA 02148, uuwhs@aol.com"I lost my father this year and two months ago learned of the ill fate of my husband. But as I often say, `God loves me still.' I am most fortunate in being at work where I can turn my sorrow into service, where to serve is so needed. There would not be enough paper manufactured in a hundred years to record the unbelievably sad experiences of these displaced persons."
Maja Capek, co-founder of the Czech Unitarian Church, wrote these words in a letter to an American Unitarian minister from a refugee repatriation camp in Jerusalem. A brave woman, she endured and overcame much hardship in her life, and always behaved in a manner befitting her Unitarian religious ideals.
A convent education may seem odd preparation for co-founding a Unitarian church, but that indeed was part of Maja Capek's upbringing. She was born Maja Veronica Oktavec in Chomutov, Bohemia where the local convent offered the best schooling available.
In 1907 she emigrated with her family to the United States and became head librarian in the Czech section of the New York Public Library. It was there that she met Norbert Capek, recently widowed and studying for a PhD at City College, New York. Their marriage was a true intellectual and spiritual partnership. It was at Maja's urging that Norbert left the Baptist ministry and turned to Unitarianism. In 1921, they returned to Prague to found a dynamic liberal church with the backing of the American Unitarian Association.
While on an American lecture tour gathering support for the work in Prague, Maja Capek introduced the Flower Communion Service which had been conceived at the Prague church. It was celebrated for the first time in the United States at the First Unitarian Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1940. In a tragic turn of events, World War II broke out while Maja was still on tour, preventing her return to her country. She stayed in Massachusetts, performing ministerial duties at the church in New Bedford.
It was not until after the war that Norbert Capek's death at the hands of the Nazis was revealed. Leadership of the Prague church had passed to the able care of daughter Bohdana and her husband Karel Haspl, both ordained Unitarian ministers, so Maja chose to direct her energy toward helping victims of the war. She joined the staff of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency and worked for a number of years as a Displaced Persons Specialist in Egypt and Palestine.
During her retirement, she continued to speak at Unitarian churches and gatherings in Europe and North America in support of the Prague church. Those who knew her described her as possessing tremendous drive and determination combined with a sensitive and loving heart--a rare and wonderful combination.