![]() ![]() Many teachers from Prague and about 10 students stayed at Columbia Seminary as visiting scholars. (Contributed photo)Ī distinctive chapter of American-Czech friendship is the scholarly partnerships between Columbia Theological Seminary in the suburbs of Atlanta and the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University (PTF) in Prague. These camps enjoy great interest and help to break down negative prejudices against the church, which many Czechs have.Ī typical worship service at an Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren church. Members of the partner church from the U.S., being native speakers, usually work as instructors there. The camps open Czech churches to local children. Later, Letohrad and another large church in Olomouc, in collaboration with a church in Atlanta, moved on to preparing summer camps with English lessons. In the following years, the pastor of Letohrad, Pavel Ruml, and many other members of his church visited the United States and temporarily joined the church in Annapolis. American friends from First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis, Maryland helped build a new CCE church in Letohrad. Later, a partnership was established between the individual churches of the PC(USA) and the ECCB. In the following years, several other American missions took place helping in various ECCB or Diaconia facilities. In the summer of 1992, a group led by Betty McGinnis helped with the reconstruction of a home for the disabled in Klobouky near Brno. In the following three decades, hundreds of people have visited the other continent, become a part of the partner church for a short time, and shared the experience of their home-churches. These contacts were established already in the early 1990s. ![]() However, the opposite turned out to be true. The canceled air connections and the closure of the borders meant the cancellation of planned visits and English summer camps. When the pandemic broke out in the spring of 2020, it seemed that the contacts between American Presbyterians and members of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB) would have to fall asleep for a while. Those who were not connected received printed sermons. Sometimes ministers hung prerecorded sermons, sometimes they streamed services from an empty church, and sometimes church members joined from their homes using conference platforms like Zoom. Many churches have launched online services. In many churches, pastors spent hours phoning people who were left alone. The church, as the community of Christ’s people, is built on communication. She felt the unspoken pressure to be dumb. ![]() “What are you crazy about, Dad,” she warned me, startled. Still in the city I started whistling in a mask to break the silence. In the mall, where the people still had to go from time to time, they walked in silence and without greeting, as if a sudden fear had deprived them of words. I was surprised at how quiet those days were - and it wasn’t just out of the curfew. ![]() But here they often suffered from cabin fever. Some people have retreated to the shell of their household. For many people, quarantine was a great economic shock. Home-schooling has had great difficulties in some families. Quarantine has revealed the social differences that exist between people - and especially between children. When people outside the home had to meet others, such as on public transport or in shops, the obligation to wear a mask began to apply. The schooling of children and young people as well as the work of many adults have moved to their households. This reduction was a reasonable response from the authorities to the pandemic, which was spreading through physical encounters between people. PRAGUE - When Covid struck in the spring of 2020 in the Czech Republic, it meant, above all, a radical reduction in contacts. A group from the PC(USA) and Czech partnership in Prague at the headquarters of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. ![]()
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