O službě slova, víře a spasení

This book is the first monograph devoted to the preaching of the Unity of Brethren in the 16th century against the backdrop of reformation and humanism-influenced homiletics. It offers the results of the latest research. It critically comes to terms with the older image of fraternal preaching and conducts a dialogue making use of contemporary interpretive approaches. It opens new perspectives based on an analysis of the oldest known surviving postil of the Unity of Brethren, identified by Jiří Just in 2012 and known as Summovník. It was written by fraternal bishop Jan Augusta (1556/1557) in the Křivoklát prison, and was published under the title Books of the Service of the Word of God (1570). The author presents the postil as a result of Augusta's reformist homiletic-liturgical program, in which the traditional schedule of the church year and the periscopes are adjusted according to the articles of the Apostolic Confession of Faith. It seeks answers to the questions of the origins of this conception, what is the nature of the individual sermons, what are their theological emphases and what is the ideological intent of the postil as a whole. It examines the reasons for its rejection by the leadership of the Union and its partial reception in fraternal preaching. He finds a remarkable response to Augusta's preaching program in the works of John Amos Comenius. The book is supplemented by a pictorial appendix and well-arranged tables.