From the October-December 2008 Issue
Pilgrim in the labyrinth
Jan and Lucie Habl
Nove Mesto nad MetujiIn 1623, that is fifty-five years before John Bunyan wrote his famous Pilgrim’s Progress, Jan Amos Komenský wrote The Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart. Both the works are Christian allegories written by Reformed authors. The two men had probably never heard about each other, but both of them wrote works which show outstanding signs of similarity. The name of John Bunyan is familiar perhaps to everyone in the English-speaking world, but no one knows him in Czech Republic. In the same way, everyone in Czech Republic is familiar with Komenský, the national hero, and his masterpiece The Labyrinth, but almost no one knows him in the English-speaking world. Let me, therefore, introduce him to you a little bit.
Jan Amos Komenský, internationally sometimes known by his Latinised name, Comenius, was the last senior (or bishop) of Unitas Fratrum, a reformation movement, which emerged in Bohemia after the martyrdom of Jan Hus in 1415. Komenský was a theologian, philosopher and educator who is celebrated today especially for his timeless educational ideas, which earned him the epithet ‘the teacher of nations’. Born in 1592, orphaned early, educated at the Reformed Academies of Herborn and Heidelberg, Komenský began working as a pastor and parochial school principal in 1618, the year the Thirty Years War began. After the defeat of the Protestant armies in the Battle of White Mountain – one of the most disastrous events in Czech history – he barely escaped with his life, while enemy soldiers burned down his house, his library and his church building. Later, his young wife, having just delivered their second child, died of the plague along with the two babies. For seven years Komenský lived the life of a fugitive in his own land, hiding in various places, in castles of friendly protestant lords, deserted huts, in caves, even in hollow trees. Early in 1628 he joined one of the small groups of Protestants who fled their native Bohemia and Moravia to await better times in neighbouring Poland. However, he never saw his homeland again. In this period he wrote his allegory The Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart, in which he described both his despair and his sources of consolation. Later in Poland he also wrote his first books calling for the reform of the educational system: The Great Didactic, The School of Infancy, and Gate of Languages Unlocked. These earned him a reputation in other countries, and he was invited first to England, then Sweden and Hungary to reform school systems. Due to the wars and other unfortunate circumstances his reforms were never fully realised, but his approach to learning and teaching was lasting.
A refugee
For 42 years of his sorrowful life he wandered the countries of Europe as a homeless refugee. He was always poor. His second wife died, too, leaving him with four children to care for. The political allies of the Czech nation either died or were killed in the wars. The beloved fatherland lay in total desolation. The scattered, impoverished church, whose bishop he had become, was in danger of disintegrating after years of exile. The Polish city of Leszno, his home for a number of years, was eventually burned to the ground by the enemies of Catholic alliance. His treasured library and numerous manuscripts – some of them results of decades of work – were totally destroyed in the fire, leaving Komenský, an old man of 64, with virtually nothing but the clothes on his back. Homeless and moneyless, he made it to Amsterdam, where his friends took him in and cared for him until his death in 1670.
At the English Camp
We – the congregation in Nové Město nad Metují – took advantage of having such a figure in our history and organized a Summer English Camp, which drew on his ideas. We placed his biography and his Labyrinth next to the biography of John Bunyan and his Pilgrim and organized the Camp with the main theme of ‘Pilgrim in the Labyrinth’. The campers were exposed to the thoughts of both the men, and through them to the essence of the Gospel message. We abbreviated several stories from their allegories and adapted them for our Camp purposes. The student campers then studied stories about a Pilgrim who wanders through this world as through a labyrinth, seeking the way out, the true peace in his heart. On his journey he encounters a number of companions, enters the City of Temptation, is brought to Vanity Fair, must climb a Mountain of Difficulty, crosses the River of Confusion and finally must go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. As I said above, the goal of our endeavour is to tell non-church people the Gospel.
They attend the English Camp, because they want to learn English. We give it to them, but with it we always give them more than they expected. In the morning they read and study the story, learn some new vocabulary, grammar and other language skills, in the afternoon they play games and have conversation classes, and in the evening they hear a talk on the main theme of the given story. The talks are basically short evangelistic sermons.
This year’s camp was our sixth. We had about 55 campers, out of which about 30 were non-believers. We continue to pray for them. Please join us in our prayers, if you can. Our desire is to see people being transformed by the grace of God.