About us

We are a Christian Protestant church. We are an open community, welcoming anyone who is searching for something more in life than what the world around us offers.

We have found a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is not a formal thing for us, and it doesn’t end after Sunday service. God is alive, and we see that every day.

We see how important it is for every person to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. To believe means to come to Him, to address Him in prayer, to confess your sins to Him, and to ask for forgiveness. He alone has the power to forgive our sins because He sacrificed His life on the cross for all people.

When a person opens up to Him in repentance, God accepts him. Then we receive new life. In our relationship with God, we change because He lives in us through the Holy Spirit.

God shows us His thoughts and plans in the Bible, in His Word. He shows us why we are alive and what we should strive for. We are not here for ourselves, but to live with Him and to serve others.

As Baptists, we do not baptize infants, but those who have personally confessed their faith in Jesus Christ. It is important to us that every person learns about Christ in an understandable way and has the opportunity to accept him. Because if a person rejects him, they waste a unique chance for life and salvation for eternity.

We are part of the worldwide Baptist movement. In our country, we follow the legacy of the Anabaptists (anabaptists) from the 15th century and, together with other Reformation churches, also the spiritual legacy of the Unity of Brethren, in which J. A. Komenský was also active.

There are currently 40 congregations in the Czech Republic, with a total of about 2,400 members. The Baptist Union in the Czech Republic is part of the Baptist World Alliance, which has nearly 41 million members worldwide.

As Baptists, we do not feel exclusive and we consider all who believe in God’s Son Jesus Christ to be our brothers and sisters. Together with other Christians, we profess the “Apostles’ Creed.” We gladly and sincerely meet and cooperate with members of other churches.

Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of the saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

History

The predecessors of the Baptists were the Anabaptists, who are considered the radical wing of the global Reformation. In the 16th century, Anabaptists fled persecution and extermination from Switzerland via Germany to southern Moravia. Thanks to the extraordinary religious freedom that prevailed in Moravia at that time, they were able to settle there. They established “brotherhood courts” there. These were communities of 50 to 60 families. They are known as the Hutterites. They achieved a high level of skill in various crafts, such as pottery (Hutterite ceramics), winemaking, medicine, etc. It was a community led in the spirit of the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. Their total number in Moravia reached 50,000. After the Battle of White Mountain, the Hutterites also had to leave Moravia, and the historical continuity with the Anabaptists was interrupted in our territory.

The first Baptist congregation in Europe was founded in 1609 in Amsterdam by English Christians led by brothers John Smyth and Thomas Helwys. Thomas Helwys returned to England in 1611 and founded a Baptist congregation there. He was very involved in the areas of religious freedom, religious tolerance, and freedom of worship. He published articles on this topic, was imprisoned for it, and eventually died in prison in 1616.

From England, the Baptist movement spread to North America, where it had better conditions for growth in an environment of freedom.

In the first half of the 19th century, American Baptist missionaries arrived in Germany. The first Baptist congregation in Germany was founded in Hamburg in 1834. Jan Gerhard Oncken was an important figure in the European context. His motto was: “Every Baptist is a missionary.” Through American and German missionaries, the gospel spread to other European countries with great missionary zeal.

Baptist congregations began to emerge in our territory in the second half of the 19th century. Missionary work among the German population began in the Broumov region in 1858. The first Czech Baptist congregation was founded in 1885 (today’s Congregation of the Baptist Union in Prague 3). The second Czech Baptist congregation was established in Brno by five Christians on March 13, 1898.

The congregation adopted the following principles:

1. to accept only spiritually reborn individuals into the church
2. to perform baptism only according to the apostolic manner
3. to perform discipline according to the apostolic manner
4. to participate in missions with all their strength
5. not to recognize any rank in the church higher than that of brotherhood
6. to develop heartfelt love, especially brotherly love for fellow believers and love for all people

    

   In1906, the congregation purchased an apartment building at what is now number 20 on Smetanova Street. In 1911, the first prayer hall, called “Husova dvorana” (Hus Hall), was opened here, with a capacity of about 150 seated people. The prayer hall was often overcrowded, with as many as 300-400 people in attendance. Public religious lectures were held in many places around Brno, during which young people distributed tracts, magazines, and offered Bibles. The congregation’s work covered various areas – youth activities, sisters, Sunday school, tambura players, choir, abstinence movement, etc.

   Of course, the history of our congregation does not end in 1911, but continues onward.