Josef Špak (10 July 1929 – 12 September 2016) was a Czech clergyman, and from 1994 to 2001, the sixth bishop-patriarch of the

Czechoslovak Hussite Church The Czechoslovak Hussite Church (, ''CČSH'' or ''CČH''; ) is a Christian church that separated from the Catholic Church after World War I in former Czechoslovakia. Both the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and Moravian Church trace their tradition ...

. He was born in Litomyšl and baptised into the Catholic Church; he later studied theology at the Hus Czechoslovak Evangelical Theological Faculty. While studying there, he met his future wife Tonička, and they married in 1953. The

StB State Security (, ), or StB / ŠtB, was the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it dealt with any activity that was considered oppositio ...

kept a file on him from 1974 to 1989 and for a time he was unable to carry out his pastoral work. He served in the parish of České Budějovice while also working in a foundry. After Tonička’s death in 1989, he married Hussite pastor Jana Švábenská. He was elected on 27 August 1994 as patriarch, a position he kept until 2001 to be succeeded by Jan Schwarz. He is buried at the Church of St. Vitus. Nicholas on the Old Town Square in Prague.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spak, Josef 1929 births 2016 deaths People from Litomyšl Czechoslovak Hussite Church bishops 20th-century archbishops