At the same time as the celebrations were held for the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Protestant Theological Faculty in Prague, on 19-22 November 2009, the society for its alumni, the Association of Friends of the Protestant Theological Faculty, was also celebrating the tenth anniversary of its foundation. 25 members of the Association, many of whom had travelled to Prague from other countries, were able to be present at the formal ceremony on Thursday 19 November when Prof. Karel A. Deurloo from Amsterdam and Prof. Gerhard Sauter from Bonn were awarded honorary doctorates by Charles University. In this way these two theologians were honoured for all they had done for the Faculty and theological life in Prague, in particular during the time of the Cold War.
On Friday 20 November an academic symposium was held at the Faculty, which dealt with the ethical questions contained in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. The Dean of the Faculty, Associate Professor Martin Prudký, gave a lecture on the fundamental significance of the Commandments for biblical theology, while Ota Halama explained the way the Decalogue had been interpreted over the course of Czech church history. Jindřich Halama's paper was devoted to the Ten Commandments in 20th-century ethics. The series of lectures was concluded by a presentation by Tim Noble in which he showed how the Ten Commandments had been interpreted in films since 1923. The significance of the Decalogue for the work of the Apostle Paul, the Gospel of Matthew, contemporary church preaching and teaching, and for the global ethic of Hans Küng, were then discussed in small working groups.
In the evening, with excellent Moravian wine available, a meeting took place with the student strike committee from 1989, at which the participants reflected once again in depth on the events of 20 years ago and their consequences for the life of the Faculty today. This dynamic, honest, and at the same time friendly meeting was moderated supremely well by Emeritus Professor Jakub Trojan.
The morning of Saturday 20 November was devoted by the Association to a look back at the experiences of a former international student, to its annual general meeting, and to elections. Blahoslav Hájek was re-elected as President.
After a visit in the afternoon to the Prague Literary House for Authors Writing in German, or to the Synod of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, the day finished with good Czech food and beer.
On Sunday 21 November, members of the Association attended a church service at the Salvator church, which had been the first address of the Faculty 90 years ago, and then went on a walk taking in places that had played a role in the life of the writer Lenka Reinerová. They then said good-bye until the next meeting, on 5-7 November 2010 in Prague.
 060_09Annual.pdf | [ ] | 226 kB |
| 060_90ETF-info-English.pdf | [ ] | 140 kB |