THE GOOSE WHO STOOD FOR THE TRUTH
He was singing in the fire.
While John Huss (c. 1369–1415) was being burned alive, he sang with a loud, unwavering voice. He did not cry out in fear—he sang amid the flames.
A few days before his execution, Huss was given the chance to retract everything he had written and taught against the Catholic Church. He was ordered to repent of his so-called heresy. Huss replied that he was willing to retract every word—if, and only if, his teachings could be proven false from Scripture. His accusers failed to prove him wrong, so Huss stood firm. For that conviction, he was burned alive.
THE GOOSE OF REFORMATION
John Huss (also spelled Jan Hus) is honored as a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation, even though he died a century before it began. A brilliant theologian with a keen sense of humor, he often joked about his own name—“Huss,” which means “goose” in Czech. Born to a poor family in the small town of Husinec in what is now the Czech Republic, he rose to become one of the most influential preachers in Bohemia and in the wider history of Christianity.
Huss believed in the supreme authority of Scripture and preached it in the language of the people—Czech—instead of Latin, which was used exclusively by the Catholic Church. He drew inspiration from Milic of Kroměříž, called the “Father of Czech Reform,” and from John Wycliffe, the “Morning Star of the Reformation.” Huss boldly declared that Christ, not the pope, is the true head of the Church—an idea that shook the religious establishment. Opposition grew even fiercer when he openly denounced the sale of indulgences. Indulgences were marketed as a way to secure salvation, but Huss exposed them as nothing more than a money-making scheme, insisting that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone. In a time when Czech people were spiritually and financially exploited by the Church, John Huss stood courageously for God and for the oppressed. For that, he was arrested.
THE GOOSE WHO STOOD FOR THE TRUTH
Despite assurances that he would have a fair hearing, Huss was never allowed to defend himself before the Council of Constance. Instead, he was ordered simply to recant. As he had already said, he was willing to cooperate—if they could prove him wrong from the Scriptures. They could not. Huss chose to obey God rather than men. On June 27, 1415, he wrote to his friends: “Moreover, dearly beloved in Christ Jesus, stand in the truth you have learned, for it conquers all and is mighty to eternity. You should know that I have neither revoked nor renounced a single article. The Council desired that I declare that all and every article drawn from my books is false. I refused unless they should show its falsity by Scriptures.”
He would retract nothing. Not a single word. And his accusers were equally determined to see him executed.
THE DAY THE GOOSE DIED
On July 6, 1415, John Huss was led to the stake. He faced the fire with calm courage. Before the flames were lit, he declared, “Today you burn a goose, but in one hundred years a swan will arise which you will prove unable to boil or roast.” Even at the end, he could make light of his name—a striking sign of the peace he had in the face of death.
Eyewitnesses heard him singing loudly as the fire rose around him, praying for God’s mercy on himself and even on his enemies. When he finally died, his executioners were so enraged that they gathered his ashes and threw them into the river, determined to leave no trace of the “heretic” John Huss. But they could not erase his witness.
THE LEGACY OF THE GOOSE
A century later, a young Augustinian monk browsing a library came across Huss’s sermons. Deeply moved, he wrote, “I was overwhelmed with astonishment; I could not understand for what cause they had burnt a man so great, who explained the Scriptures with so much gravity and skill.” That monk was Martin Luther.
The “swan.”
Sources and Studies:
Bartoš, F. M., & Spinka, M. (n.d.). Jan Hus. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved September 26, 2025, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Hus
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