Milan Balabán (3 September 1929 – 4 January 2019) was a Czechoslovak

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

, professor of religion and the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB; , ČCE) is the largest Czech Protestant church and the second-largest church in the Czech Republic after the Catholic Church. It was formed in 1918 in Czechoslovakia through the unification of th ...

(ECCB) pastor, and poet. Balabán, an

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

dissident during

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

communist era A communist era is a sustained period of national government by a single party following the philosophy of Marxism–Leninism. Many countries have experienced such a period of communist rule. Current communist states China The Chinese Communist ...

, was a

Charter 77 Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members ...

signatory. He was also among of group of Czech Old Testament scholars who wrote and translated the Old Testament theologians the Czech Ecumenical Translation of the Bible, which remains the most widely used

Czech language Czech ( ; ), historically known as Bohemian ( ; ), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. Spoken by over 12 million people including second language speakers, it serves as the official language of the ...

translation of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

today.

Biography

Balabán was born on 3 September 1929 in the village of Boratyn,

Tarnopol Voivodeship Tarnopol Voivodeship (; ) was an administrative region of Second Polish Republic, interwar Poland (1918–1939), created on 23 December 1920, with an area of 16,500 km2 and provincial capital in Tarnopol (now ''Ternopil'', Ukraine). The Voi ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

(now located in present-day

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

). He graduated from the Protestant Theological Faculty () at

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

and became a minister in the

. Balabán joined the (''New Orientation''), a group of Protestant Evangelical theologians and clergy which advocated for democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia, during the 1950s. He continued to push for democratic reforms throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, as an anti-communist dissident. As a result, the communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic authorities revoked his license to serve as a clergyman in 1974. He was forced to work manual labor jobs, which included time in the

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

city

sewer system Sewerage (or sewage system) is the infrastructure that conveys sewage or surface runoff (stormwater, meltwater, rainwater) using sewers. It encompasses components such as receiving drains, manholes, pumping stations, storm overflows, and screen ...

. Balabán signed the

, which called for human rights and democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia. Milan Balabán died on 4 January 2019 in

Libice nad Cidlinou Libice nad Cidlinou () is a municipality and village in Nymburk District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,200 inhabitants. It is one of the oldest settlements in Bohemia. Geography Libice nad Cidlinou is located ...

, Czech Republic, at the age of 89.

Awards

* Medal of Merit (October 2002), awarded by President Vaclav Havel, a fellow Charter 77 dissident.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balaban, Milan 1929 births 2019 deaths Czech theologians 20th-century Protestant theologians Charter 77 signatories Czech Protestant clergy Czech-language writers Translators to Czech 20th-century Czech philosophers Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) Czechoslovak democracy activists Czechoslovak philosophers Academic staff of Charles University Charles University alumni Czech biblical scholars