In conjunction with neighboring Slovakia, the Czech Lands have an Orthodox Church whose independence (autocephaly) has been recognized by Moscow (1951) and Constantinople (1998). Though the Church is small, it has played an outsized historical role since its revival in the early 20th century.
In 1941 Hitler placed senior Nazi Reinhard Heydrich—one of the architects of the Holocaust—in charge of German-occupied Bohemia and Moravia. Mass executions and deportations to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria immediately followed. In response, after months of training in Britain, seven Czech paratroopers were airlifted onto Czech territory on the night of 28th December. Their mission— Operation Anthropoid—was to assassinate Heydrich.
Despite some mishaps, the group succeeded in fatally wounding Heydrich in Prague on 27th May 1942. Within half an hour of the attack, all civilian traffic out of the city was halted and some 35,000 homes were searched. Believing that villagers in Lidice and Ležáky had harbored the paratroopers, Nazi police executed all males older than 15 in Lidice and all adults in Ležáky, before razing both villages.
In Prague, meanwhile, the seven paratroopers had found refuge in the crypt beneath the Orthodox Cathedral of SS. Cyril and Methodius, thanks to the parish council chair, Ján Sonnevend. His suggestion to hide the group was supported by Fr. Vladimír Petřek, who also took care of the men. After discovering the hiding place, however, Nazi troops stormed the church in the early hours of 18th June. All seven paratroopers died in the attack.
As the storming was taking place, Fr. Vladimír Petřek and a second priest, Václav Čikl, were arrested, in addition to Ján Sonnevend, church warden Václav Ornest, and members of their families. The following day, Czech Orthodox Bishop Gorazd (Pavlík)—who had known the paratroopers were in the crypt— wrote to the authorities offering his own life for the release of those under arrest. He received no answer, and within days was arrested himself.
A brief trial took place in Prague in early September. Bishop Gorazd, Fr. Václav Čikl, and Jan Sonnevend were executed by firing squad on 4th September. Fr. Petřek met the same fate the following day. All Orthodox churches in Bohemia and Moravia were closed down. On 24th October some 260 Czechs also suspected of aiding Operation Anthropoid were executed in Mauthausen-Gusen camp, including ten more members of the Prague Orthodox parish.
Bishop Gorazd was canonized by the restored Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church in 1987. Frs. Vladimír and Václav, Ján Sonnevend, Václav Ornest, and the other martyred parishioners were commemorated as saints for the first time on 8th February 2020.
Information taken from an exhibition at SS. Cyril and Methodius Orthodox Cathedral and Museum, Prague.
