GERALDINE FAGAN

Before 1968, socialism in Czechoslovakia wore an inhuman face. Along with the shuttering of civic associations like the mission-oriented Blue Cross within the Lutheran Church, the year 1950 saw an intense government crackdown on Catholic religious orders. On the night of 13-14 April, some 2,400 monks were rounded up and transported to a few monasteries-turned-concentration camps as part of an operation entitled Action K. This was preceded by a show trial in which nine of the orders’ superiors received prison terms ranging from nine years to life for “treason” and “antiState activity.”1 The damage wrought by Action K upon the spiritual formation of later Catholic generations still resonates, as young Catholics Zuzana Babicová and Michal Brnický detailed to the East-West Church Report in Bratislava in late 2017.2 Religious orders such as the Dominicans and Salesians worked to provide theological education and motivate young people, while their direct links with Rome boosted resistance to Communist influence within Czechoslovakia. The rupture of their activities thus denied vital spiritual lifeblood to the local Church.  

Fr. Titus Zeman

With the beatification of Fr. Titus Zeman in Bratislava on 30 September 2017, the Catholic Church in Slovakia is now highlighting members of religious orders who suffered for their faith during the Communist period. “Fr. Titus’ desire to donate his life for others is an excellent example of how to live the Gospel today,” Salesian priest Fr. Andrej Kňaze told the East-West Church Report in Bratislava a few weeks after the beatification ceremony. “This is really what we need— testimonies like this. Not just of people who tell us [the Gospel], but ones who live it.” 

While a member of the Salesian order, 35-year-old Fr. Titus was at a parish presbytery in the town of Šenkvice on the night of 13-14 April 1950 and so escaped internment. As Action K began to suppress theological education, however, he grew concerned that Salesian students would not be able to complete their studies. Consulting with other clergy, Fr. Titus proposed the solution of smuggling the students out of Czechoslovakia so that they could graduate and be ordained in Italy before returning as missionary priests. With the assistance of an experienced people-smuggler, Josef Macek, he then organized two successful crossings over the River Morava into Austria in August and October 1950.3 In total, 21 young Salesians were able to flee Czechoslovakia on these trips, including future missionaries in France and Japan, teachers and translators in Germany and Italy, broadcasters at Vatican Radio, and a composer of sacred music. One still serves as a priest in the state of New York.4 

Despite Macek’s arrest by Austrian police following the second crossing, Fr. Titus managed to return to Czechoslovakia with his less-experienced colleague in March 1951. Following preparations for a third crossing, Fr. Titus set out before dawn on 8 April from Šaštín, a town close to the border. This time, his group of 22 included novices, theological students, and priests at risk of arrest. They had fewer than 20 miles to walk, but the journey proved exhausting due to muddy ground. The group reached the Morava River three hours behind schedule in the early hours of 9 April. As it was already beginning to get light, there was no guarantee that the whole group would reach the opposite bank under cover of darkness. Conditions for the crossing were also poor, as the river was overflowing due to heavy rain and snowmelt. Fr. Titus pressed the group to continue, but most were dispirited, and they decided to turn back. Border patrol guards soon spotted and arrested 15 of the party; the rest managed to escape on a train heading towards Bratislava.  

Torture 

Fr. Titus later described to a friend the period of incarceration following his arrest: When they caught me, my Calvary began. I experienced the most difficult moments, physically and mentally, in pretrial detention. …There was a place of execution under the window of my prison cell. People were brought there every day. I heard horrible inhuman shrieks and laments. They were even tortured there. I lived in constant fear that at any moment the door of my cell could be opened, and I would be taken to that execution place. …When I return in my mind to the unimaginable torture during the investigation, I have to tell you frankly that the mere thought of it overwhelms me with sheer terror. They used inhuman, extreme methods of beating and torture. For example, they used to bring a bucket full of excrement from a cesspit, stick my head into it and hold me there until I started to suffocate. They kicked me all over, beat me hard with some instrument, and slapped me across the face. After one of those slaps, I went deaf. 

When his trial began in February 1952, Fr. Titus was alleged to be a Vatican secret service agent who had illegally transported other enemies of the state out of Czechoslovakia. He responded: Fr. Titus was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. In 1967, three years after early release on parole, he received permission to celebrate Mass in his hometown of Vajnory, albeit alone and in civilian clothes. He did this daily. From early 1968 he was able to celebrate Mass publicly and to carry out other priestly ministry, but his main occupation remained a stocktaker. Fr. Titus died on 8 January 1969 aged 54, the harsh conditions of his incarceration a contributory factor to heart failure. 

I do not feel any guilt in my conscience. I did everything that is proclaimed as my guilt out of my love for the Church, and especially for the Salesian Society, which I have to thank for everything that I am. 

I considered it my duty to accompany “to the West” priests who were prevented from carrying out their priestly ministry here. I considered it my special vocation to help Salesian theologians and young novices complete their studies in Turin because they could not realize their earnest desire to become priests here after the monasteries were closed.

Prison term

Fr. Titus was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. In 1967, three years after early release on parole, he received permission to celebrate Mass in his hometown of Vajnory, albeit alone and in civilian clothes. He did this daily. From early 1968 he was able to celebrate Mass publicly and to carry out other priestly ministry, but his main occupation remained a stocktaker. Fr. Titus died on 8 January 1969 aged 54, the harsh conditions of his incarceration a contributory factor to heart failure. 

The formal beatification process recognizing Fr. Titus Zeman as a martyr began in 2010 under Pope Benedict XVI, and concluded with Pope Francis’ final approval in 2017. (Beatification permits local veneration, but is a stage away from canonization as a saint of the Catholic Church.) 

For Fr. Andrej Kňaze in Bratislava, the most significant moment in Fr. Titus’ life occurred after the second crossing, while he was waiting in Austria to return to Czechoslovakia. In January 1951 he wrote two letters to a friend, the first musing on the admonitions he had received concerning his smuggling efforts and whether this indicated that God wished him to stop. A few days after this letter, however, Fr. Titus attended a Mass where the readings were 1 John 3:14-16 (“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love one another… We ought to lay down our lives for our brethren.”) and Matthew 10:28-31 (“Do not fear… Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”) 

For the brethren 

In his second letter, Fr. Titus told his friend about the powerful inspiration he felt when he heard these two passages: We have an obligation to be ready to sacrifice our lives for our brethren, and for that reason we should not be afraid. …I was wrong when I sent you the previous letter …Those were my first impressions, influenced too much by thoughts of this life instead of thinking about the next, the better life which we hope to receive through the mercy of God. Maybe some people will call this false heroism, even madness, or irrational behavior. Let people call it whatever they like. I call it a duty that was entrusted to me by my superiors, to whom I am responsible before God.

The same two Gospel passages that inspired Fr. Titus were read during the September 2017 beatification Mass, Fr. Andrej told the East-West Church Report, in addition to part of Fr. Titus’ second January 1951 letter, prefaced as “from a letter of Blessed Titus Zeman, priest and martyr.”5 “As we brought forward the [Eucharistic] gifts in the Offertory Procession, there was a very strong moment when I was able to understand a little more deeply what Jesus asked us to do,” Fr. Andrej recalled. “His life was given for us, and Titus gave his life for his brothers.”

One of many

Fr. Andrej Kňaze stressed to the East-West Church Report that—as Archbishop of Bratislava, Stanislav Zvolenský had noted during the beatification ceremony—Fr. Titus Zeman was not being singled out, but represented hundreds of other priests and nuns persecuted by the Czechoslovak Communist authorities. Fr. Andrej recalled Fr. Ernest Macák (d. 2016), who escaped from a detention camp following Action K but was arrested in 1952. In order to avoid having to disclose the names of other members of religious orders, Fr. Ernest faked madness to the extent that he was formally certified as insane and released from prison in 1955. For the next 13 years he lived on his parents’ farm, where only seven people knew that he was in fact sane. Permitted to travel to Rome in 1968, Fr. Ernest dropped his pretense and stayed to work with Vatican Radio, going on to produce over 600 episodes of a youth program. He returned to Czechoslovakia only in 1990, once the Communist regime had fallen.6 

Of the 19 of Fr. Titus’ associates also put on trial following the unsuccessful third crossing, all but one received prison terms ranging from 12 to 22 years.7 Pastor Daniel Pastirčák of Kaplnka evangelical church in Bratislava fondly remembers one, Fr. Anton Srholec, as his “greatest friend.” Together, they led worship services at Pohoda, Slovakia’s largest music festival, prior to Fr. Anton’s death in 2016.8 Aged 22 at the time of the trial, Fr. Anton was sentenced to 12 years; most of the ten he served were as a forced laborer at the notorious uranium mines at Jáchymov, close to the Czechoslovak-East German border. 

Following his release, Fr. Anton independently studied theology and professed his final vows as a Salesian secretly in 1964. Permitted to travel to Italy during the Prague Spring, he completed his studies there and was ordained by Pope Paul VI in 1970. On returning to Czechoslovakia, Fr. Anton eventually won permission to serve as a priest. However, he was closely watched by the ŠtB secret police and repeatedly transferred between parishes. When he organized a youth program in 1985, Fr. Anton’s permission for parish work was rescinded.9 

Two of those sentenced along with Fr. Titus Zeman are still alive. Ján Brichta (b. 1928) served almost half of his 15-year term, partly also at the Jáchymov uranium mines, before working on a collective farm from 1959 to 1989. He was finally able to graduate in theology after 1990.10

Anton Semeš (b. 1930) was sentenced to 14 years. Some of the six he served were similarly at Jáchymov, which he characterized as “actually a liquidation camp.” Also barred from studying theology after his release, Semeš married, raised four sons, and became a translator of technical literature from Russian and German. In 2015 Slovak journalists asked him how he had managed to remain optimistic despite everything he had gone through. “I have learned to accept the things that I cannot change with a light heart,” Semeš replied. “I get by with the words of one Russian song, ‘Whoever goes through life singing/ Will never ever fall behind.’”11

Notes: 

1. “Czech Priests’ Trial Exposes Set ‘Pattern’ To Crush Church”, Catholic Weekly (Sydney, NSW), 20 April 1950, 3; Karel Kaplan, “Church and State in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1956. Part II,” Religion in Communist Lands, vol. 14, no. 2 (1986), 185-7.
2. “Quo Vadis? Seeking Young Catholics in Slovakia,” EastWest Church Report, vol. 26, no. 2 (2018), 1-4.
3. The details of Fr. Titus Zeman’s life and beatification here are collated from material at https://tituszeman.sk/en/.
4. https://tituszeman.sk/en/titus-zeman-en/saved-by-titus/.
5. Condensed video footage of the beatification events may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkm08Ifj31o.
6.  “Slovakia – Death of Fr Ernest Macák, former Provincial who pretended to be insane during the communist regime,” Agenzia Info Salesiana, 18 October 2016, http://www.infoans. org/en/sections/news/item/1950-slovakia-death-of-frernest-macak-former-provincial-who-pretended-to-beinsane-during-the-communist-regime.
7.  https://tituszeman.sk/en/titus-zeman-en/they-sufferedwith-titus/.
8. “Towards “a culturally understandable expression of our faith”: An Interview with Pastor Daniel Pastirčák, East-West Church Report, vol. 26, no. 2 (2018), 5-7. 
9. “Priest, former dissident Srholec died,” Slovak Spectator, 7 January 2016, https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20070713/priestformer-dissident-srholec-died.html; [In Slovak] “Slovensko sa rozlúčilo s Antonom Srholcom (†86): Kritizovaný Ficov poradca neprišiel,” Topky.sk, 12 January 2016, https://www.topky.sk/cl/10/1521037/FOTO-Slovensko-sa-rozlucilos-Antonom-Srholcom---86---Kritizovany-Ficov-poradcaneprisiel. 
10. “Ján Brichta (1928),” Ústav Pamäti Národa, https://www.upn.gov.sk/en/jan-brichta-1928/. 
11.  [In Slovak] “VÄZEŇ Č. A-05658 ANTON SEMEŠ,” Lenka Eremiášová and Ľudovít Števko, Extraplus, 1 July 2015, http://www.extraplus.sk/clanok/vazen-c-05658-antonsemes. The Russian song is “Marsh veselykh rebiat” from the 1934 Soviet movie Veselye Rebiata

Geraldine Fagan is editor of the East-West Church Report.