I remained fragile, but armed, says the priest pursued by State Security and fate
Daniel Kvasnička was born on December 23, 1959 in České Budějovice. Together with three siblings, he first grew up in the village of Trhové Sviny in South Bohemia. His father worked there as a lay preacher of Unity of the Brethren (Czech Republic), but he came in the crosshairs of State Security, which blackmailed him for many years. The family moved several times because of this. After elementary school, Daniel entered secondary school in Prague, where he studied advertising and photography, then he applied to the theological faculty, but was not accepted there for political reasons. At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, he enlisted in the military service. He then worked in a chemical company in Pardubice. In the mid-1980s, he moved to Děčín, where he worked as an assistant to a local preacher who was slowly preparing for retirement. Here, however, he also encountered State Security interrogations. After November 1989, he worked in the Civic Forum. He worked as a preacher in Náchod, Říčany, and since 2014 Litomyšl has been his place of work.