Word: hromadka
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When the Communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, Dr. Joseph Hromadka, dean of the Jan Comenius Theological Faculty in Prague, was one of the few Christian leaders to cooperate with them. Since then, he has become one of Europe's rare spokesmen for the view that Christianity can get along under Communist regimes...
...leader in his country's wartime underground; Dr. Hendrick Kraemer was a member of the Dutch resistance movement; Germany's Bishop Otto Dibelius, who fought the Nazis for ten years, is now fighting the Communists in the Eastern part of his diocese; Dr. Joseph L. Hromadka of the Jan Hus Faculty of Theology in Prague, the only delegate from behind the Iron Curtain, is now walking an East-West tightrope...
Prague's Joseph Hromadka tried to explain that the situation in Eastern Europe is "both wider and deeper than the question of religious liberty." These countries, said, are going through a total social, economic, and political transformation, and the churches "could not serve as a shelter for those who wish to retreat to the old social order." In short, "the judgment of God lies upon the churches for having failed to meet the needs of the broad masses of people throughout the world...
...Hromadka, who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1940 to 1947 and is now on the faculty of Prague's Charles University, replied in pungent, accented English: "Even the enormous wealth and the atomic power of the American nation must not deceive us ... The Western nations have ceased to be the exclusive masters and architects of the world . . . What I have in mind is Western man's apparent fear, frustration and helplessness in dealing with the great issues of our times. Anxiety about the advancing social transformations under the leadership of the Soviet Union is depriving the average...
...Freedom? The two speakers got almost equal applause. In a press conference afterwards, Hromadka skillfully handled hostile questions. How had the Communist coup affected religion in Czechoslovakia? Said he: "Our churches are more relevant today than they have been in many decades." Was it possible to have a free church in a Communist state? "So far we have been left alone. I don't know what the Communists may do to the church tomorrow. But if they try to restrict my freedom I know what I will do. I will say no. I will go to prison." Later, Hromadka...