History
The Flower Communion was initiated by Norbert Čapek, who was also the founder of the Unitarian Church in Czechoslovakia. He saw the need to unite the diverse congregants of his church, from varying Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish backgrounds, without alienating those who had left these traditions. For this reason he honored the universal beauty of nature by having a communion of flowers instead of the Eucharist. The first Flower Communion was held in Prague on June 4, 1923. Čapek's term is more accurately translated as "Flower Celebration," a term which continues to be preferred by Czech Unitarians today.
The Flower Communion was reportedly introduced in the United States in 1940 by Maja Čapek, Norbert's wife, and was widely adopted by the American Unitarian churches, and their successor Unitarian Universalist congregations. Earlier Unitarian "Flower Services," documented in Midwestern U.S. Unitarian congregations beginning circa 1880, were somewhat different in form from Čapek's service.
Read more about this topic: Flower Communion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)