Flower Communion

Normally celebrated in June around the birthday of Norbert Capek.

The first flower communion was celebrated in June of 1923 in the Czech Republic. This communion was held each year thereafter even during the year and half of the originator’s Norbert Capek’s imprisonment in German concentration camps. At times the lines of people waiting to get into the church for the Flower Communion, and for Sunday services, would reach as far back as a block or more. Each person entered with a flower, placed it in a vase, and each person left with a different flower.

The flowers are blessed and placed in the vase as a symbol of our freedom to choose our religion. The flower represents the unity of First Church Unitarian Universalist of Leominster’s religious community and the spirit of acceptance of one another.

The flower communion helps to educate Unitarian Universalist about the connection to our Unitarian forbears in Eastern Europe.