In mid-July, we will commemorate the half-centenary of the deaths of two prominent personalities who made their mark in the building history of Prague Cathedral. On 13. July marks the 625th anniversary of the death of the second cathedral builder Petr Parléř (+1399), about whose work we are preparing further articles. The high windows, the vault and the support system of the choir, the Old Sacristy, the Chapel of St. Wenceslas and the Great South Tower are the largest and most significant parts of the building built by Petr Parléř. His memory can be honoured in the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene in the choir gallery of the cathedral near the monumental silver tombstone of St. John of Nepomuk. The remains of the two medieval cathedral builders Matthias of Arras and Petr Parléř were transferred to this chapel, and the heavily trampled tombstones are placed along the eastern and western walls of this chapel.
A day later, on 14. July marks 85 years since the death of the important Czech painter Alfons Mucha, whose stained glass window can be admired in the New Archbishop’s Chapel in the north aisle of the completed part of the cathedral. The window was installed here in 1931 and depicts St. Václav in childhood with grandmother St. Ludmilla surrounded by scenes from the lives of the Slavic saints St. Cyril and Methodius. The image of the goddess Slavia is also incorporated under Christ as an emblem of the Czech bank Slavia, which financed the stained glass.
25. July will mark the 460th anniversary of the death of the saviour and restorer of our cathedral, the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia and Hungary, Archduke of Austria and Infante of Spain Ferdinand I., who found his final resting place here in the so-called “Cathedral of the Holy Roman Empire”. The Collin Mausoleum, built in the early 17th century. century made of white marble and placed in the axis of the choir. Here he is buried alongside his wife, Queen Anne of Jagiellon, and his son, Emperor and King Maximilian II. The merits of the Emperor and King Ferdinand I for the cathedral are indisputable. After the great fire in the left bank of Prague in 1541, when Prague Castle was also seriously damaged, he and Queen Anne made a significant contribution to saving the burnt-out torso of our cathedral. In addition to the new roofing, he was responsible for the construction of the music chancel, built by Boniface Wohlmut in the western part of the choir, which was built in the 20th century. century was transferred by Kamil Hilbert to the transept of the cathedral, where it has been preserved to this day. The acquisition of a new organ and bells was also a significant achievement of Ferdinand I. While the organ burnt down during the subsequent Prussian bombardment of Prague in 1757, the bells have survived to this day. The largest Czech bell, Sigismund, cast in 1548 by the bell-maker Tomáš Jaroš at the expense of King Ferdinand I, depicts the king and Queen Anne kneeling in reverence before Our Lord on the cross. To this royal couple we owe a significant debt for the preservation of our cathedral for future generations.
At the 10:00 a.m. Sunday Mass in the Cathedral, offered for our canons, let us remember in particular two of them whom the Lord called out of this world on 27. July. They are united by their affiliation to our Metropolitan Chapter and Cathedral, but separated by more than six centuries.
The first of them, Benes Krabice of Weitmile, was the third director of the construction of our cathedral and as such worked closely with Petr Parléř and Emperor Charles IV himself. His gothic portrait bust made of sandstone in the Parléř workshop can be found on the inner triforium of our cathedral on the north side of the choir, alongside Matthias of Arras, Peter Parléř and other directors of the building from among our canons such as Václav of Radč or Ondřej Kotlík. The tombs of the Prague bishops at the end of the choir between the tomb of St. Vitus and the Chapel of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary were established on his initiative and the relics from the original cemetery at the Romanesque basilica were transferred to them. He has also entered the history of our cathedral as a chronicler and is the author of the Chronicle of the Prague Church. Benes Krabice from Weitmile dies 27. July 1375.
On the same day we commemorate the anniversary of the death of the chapter dean and later provost and consecrated bishop of Prague, Francis Borg. Beautiful. He became a member of our chapter in 1884 and since then he has served in many other offices of the Prague Archdiocese, especially as a Consistory Councillor and in 1894 he even became a member of the Provincial Assembly of the Kingdom of Bohemia. From 1897 he was also a first-class correspondent member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts under Emperor Franz Joseph I. He was also famous for his rich literary activity. In 1880-1893 he was editor of the magazine “Blahověst” and from 1881 editor of the printing union “Katolicko-tiskový spolek”. He published “Cardinal Count Harrach, Archbishop of Prague” (Prague, 1886); “St. Procopius, his monastery and his memory among the people” (Prague, 1895); together with Prof. Jezek he published “St. Vojtěch, the second bishop of Prague, his monastery and his veneration by the people” (Prague 1898). In 1888 he was awarded the Cross of Honour “for Ecclesia et Pontifice”. František Borgia Krásl dies 27. July 1907 and found his final resting place in the chapter tomb in the cemetery of St. Margaret in Břevnov.
On 3. On August 1680, canon Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod, dean of our metropolitan chapter and consecrating bishop of Prague, died. We will remember him at the 10:00 a.m. Mass on Sunday when we pray for our canons. He is another extraordinary personality of our chapter, whom every Czech high school student will meet in the Czech language and literature classes, because in addition to his priestly and episcopal ministry, he was also an important historian and writer of the Baroque period.
However, he also made his mark in the history of our Metropolitan Chapter. Together with Archbishop Matúš Sobek of Bílenberk, he was an important driving force behind the Baroque completion of our cathedral, designed by the architect Giovanni Domenico Orsi and described in a separate article we published in June. The attempt at Baroque completion failed and the dismantled Baroque pillars were removed in the first half of the 19th century. According to some sources, however, Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod became a great inspiration for his namesake, Václav Michal Pešina of Čechorod, whose initiative to complete our cathedral 200 years later was already successful.
In addition, he was an extremely avid collector of relics. He placed the entire set of relics, brought from Karlštejn Castle, in the altar in the Martinic Chapel of St. Vitus Cathedral, and others he displayed on altars or arranged for the St. Vitus Treasure. He compiled two catalogues of relics with their history (Phosphorus septicornis, 1673; Thesaurus in lucem protractus, 1674, the second also in Czech translation). We remember in prayer and ask the Lord to receive him into His kingdom.
Sunday Mass at 10:00 a.m. is regularly celebrated by our canons and we pray for the living and deceased members of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter, of whom hundreds have been replaced in our cathedral during its thousand-year history. Among them were a number of important personalities across the centuries, who not only made their mark in the history of the cathedral’s construction. Many of our canons distinguished themselves as important chroniclers, theologians or historians, some even devoted themselves to natural sciences, and many of them later became bishops and archbishops of Prague, who were previously elected by the cathedral chapter. Due to the turbulent history of the Czech lands in the 20th century. century we can also find among the members of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter a number of respectable personalities who faced Nazi and Communist persecution. Now we want to remember especially the extraordinarily brave, selfless, hard-working and pious canon Otakar Šveec, who was a victim of both these regimes and whose birth will be celebrated on Tuesday 27. August 136 years. At the same time we remember another prisoner of the communist regime, Canon Jaroslav Kulač, who died on 25. August 1970, and this Sunday marks 54 years since his death.
Canon Švec was born in 1888 in Pilsen and was ordained a priest on 24. February 1912 in Rome, where he had previously studied. He was admirably active in his priestly ministry. Already in the year of his priestly ordination he became a doctor of theology and besides his work in the clerical administration he taught religion in schools and on Saturdays he preached at the Straka Academy. In Karlín he managed the charitable society of St. Cyril and Methodius, which took care of meals for the poor workers, he also became the personal secretary of the Apostolic Nuncio in Czechoslovakia.
Pope Pius XI made him canon of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter. appointed on 23.2.1929. Since then, he has held a number of other positions in the Prague archdiocese, serving as counselor of the archiepiscopal curia and prosynodal examiner and judge, but he has also directed many other archdiocesan institutions. He assisted Archbishop Kordač in all the services celebrated on the occasion of the St. Wenceslas’ Day of Grace.
His exceptionally rich priestly ministry was interrupted on 1. May 1942, when he was arrested by the Prague Gestapo. Throughout the rest of II. World War II and the German occupation of the Czech lands, he suffered in prisons and concentration camps; from Pankrác in Prague he was transported first to Terezín, then to Mauthausen and Dachau, from where he returned after the war with damaged health. During his imprisonment, he demonstrated his bravery in an outstanding manner. He gave to the hungry from his tiny ration of bread and soup, and almost regularly distributed the contents of the parcels he received from home. He didn’t count on retribution. He was fearless, characterful and direct, and therefore very popular. Once he even stood up fearlessly to Captain Heinrich Hackenbracht when the latter was beating a fellow prisoner – a Russian prisoner and an invalid. He did not hesitate to go among the infected prisoners who cried out for help and asked him for spiritual strength, even though there were severe penalties for this activity. For his brave behaviour during the occupation and imprisonment in concentration camps, he received 18. 7. 1947 two awards from the President of the Republic, the Czechoslovak Military Medal for Merit of the 1st degree and the Czechoslovak War Cross.
However, he enjoyed his newfound freedom for only 4 years. In 1949, his further suffering began, when he was arrested again in Czechoslovakia, held in detention for a year and in 1950 sentenced to 20 years in prison and confiscation of all his property. He went through prisons in Mírov and Valdice, and during his imprisonment he underwent surgery on his severely damaged spine. Although his relatives and friends sought his pardon, the request for clemency was denied in 1952. It was not until 1954 that President Antonín Zápotocký pardoned two-thirds of his sentence. He served the remainder of his sentence at Mírov, where, as a result of a stroke, he became paralysed in his left arm and had difficulty speaking. By order of the General Prosecutor’s Office in Prague, he was 3. 11. 1954 Remainder of sentence remitted and was paroled on November 12. He was handed over from prison to his relatives, seriously ill and permanently bedridden. Due to the severity of his condition, he was soon transferred to the orthopaedic clinic in Prague 2, after which he was treated at St. Anna’s Hospital in Brno and at the end of 1955 he was transferred to the Institute for Diseases of the Elderly in Mělník-Podolí, where he was transferred to the Institute for Diseases of the Elderly in Mělník-Podolí on 29. 5. 1958 he died of a heart attack.
Canon Jaroslav Kulač was ordained a priest together with Otakar Švec February 24, 1912 in Rome and suffered a similar fate during the Communist regime. He became canon of our chapter in 1932. Before that, he worked in the spiritual administration in Kolín and in the military spiritual administration, and after his appointment as a canon, he served as the Archbishop’s Consistory Councillor and in many other functions and offices of the Prague Archdiocese. During II. World War II and the Nazi occupation of the Czech lands, he was chancellor of the Prague archbishopric. His priestly ministry was interrupted in 1950, when he was arrested as part of the Communist government’s crackdown on the Catholic Church and sentenced to 17 years in prison. After ten years he was released, but because he was forbidden to be a priest he had to live in seclusion with relatives in Šestajovice. On 18.6.1969 he was rehabilitated, but a year later on On 25 August, however, he dies. May the Lord reward both our brothers and His devoted priests for their faithful service, extraordinary bravery and sacrifice, and accept them into His kingdom!
At the 10:00 a.m. Sunday Mass, which is regularly celebrated in the Cathedral for the living and deceased members of our Metropolitan Chapter, we remember especially the extraordinarily brave priest of Christ, canon and hero of the anti-Nazi resistance, ThDr. Antonín Bořek-Dohalski of Dohalice, whose martyrdom in the Auschwitz concentration camp will be marked on Tuesday 3. September 82 years old.
This canon, descended from the old Czech count family of Dohalský of Dohalice, was born in 1889 in Přívozc near Sedlčany and was ordained a priest together with other later metropolitan canons Jaroslav Kulač and Otakar Švec on 24th January 1889. February 1912 in Rome, where he had previously studied at the University of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide. Two years later World War I broke out, during which he worked first as a chaplain in Příbram, then as a field curate at the front and in various hospitals in Bohemia, and finally he took care of Italian prisoners. After that he returned to the spiritual administration in Příbram and other municipalities. His tenure at Prague’s Hradčany began in 1924, when the Archbishop of Prague, František Kordač, chose him as his secretary and master of ceremonies, then in 1928 he became a papal chamberlain and received the title of monsignor.
He was appointed canon of our chapter by Pope Pius XI in 1931 and lived in the building of the chapter deanery (the so-called Mladot House) No. 37 in Vikářská Street in the immediate vicinity of our cathedral. In the same year he became Chancellor of the Archbishop’s Curia and served in a number of other offices, including that of Archbishop’s Commissioner for the examinations of students of the Theological Faculty.
Because of his abilities and dedication to the diocese, he became one of the leading candidates for the office of Archbishop of Prague, which was vacated from 21. April 1941, when Karel Cardinal Kašpar died. However, some other priests of German nationality also sought the See of St. Vojtěch and the occupation authorities wanted to interfere in the selection of new bishops. For this reason, the vacant episcopal chairs in the occupied countries were not occupied and the Archdiocese of Prague was not occupied for the rest of the Second Vatican Council. World War II was directed by the Chapter Vicar ThDr. Bohumil Opatrný. However, some ambitious German priests aspiring to the office of Archbishop of Prague and cooperating with the Gestapo saw Canon Dohalský as a significant obstacle; he also maintained contacts with the resistance against the occupiers and in 1938 signed a declaration of loyalty to the Republic by the Czech and Moravian nobility.
Probably on the basis of a denunciation by one of these German priests, Canon Dohalský 5. June 1942 arrested. This was after the Mass he celebrated at the Institute for Blind Girls of the Franciscan Sisters in Kampa. He was imprisoned at Pankrác and eventually taken to Terezín. The later Bishop of Litoměřice and Cardinal Štěpán Trochta, who was imprisoned there at the time, later recalled: “Because his whole head was bandaged, I asked him what they were doing to him and expressed my regret. He answered, ‘Haec est vera imitatio Christi’ – ‘This is the true imitation of Christ’. He was a nobleman and a fine man. That is why this statement of his deeply impressed me. Before I was sent to Auschwitz, he asked me for St. confession.”
In Auschwitz he received further harsh and inhuman treatment. According to one surviving testimony, he was later beaten in this concentration camp while marching to work; according to other sources, he was shot while working in the swamps. It happened on 3.9.1942. His body was probably cremated in the camp crematorium, but the urn with his ashes never reached Prague. We remember in prayer and ask the Lord to receive him into His glory.
Author. Ondřej Stříteský
