Josef Špak

Josef Špak was a Czech clergyman, and from 1994 to 2001, the sixth bishop-patriarch of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
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 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.