Prague 2, Emmaus

Benedictine Abbey of St Mary the Virgin and St Hieronymus in Emmaus · Emmaus monastery 128 00 …

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Move old man!

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Despite the tense situation in the late 1940s, Josef Kohl decided to join the Benedictine order. He was preparing for his religious life in Emmaus and it was also here, where he became a novice on November 10, 1949. He adopted the religious name of John the Baptist. "On 27 April, 1950, I was getting ready for service and then I went to pray to the local chapel. Meanwhile, the monastery was occupied by members of the secret police. We were instructed to go to our rooms and pack. Each one of us was guarded. Even the 82-year-old Friar Roman was told to go and pack. He opposed and told them that even in 1941, he was allowed to stay there, but it was explained to him that this time it wasn't possible. When he packed his things in a bag with a handle and a box of margarine, he announced the police agent who guarded him that he was too weak to carry the baggage. The agent helped him carry it to the dining room where almost all of us had already been waiting. Then the agent handed Roman his bags and told him to sign up at a table on the opposite side of the room. Roman made a few more steps, put the bags down, straightened up and said: 'this is already the third time I'm enrolling. The first was at the time of the emperor, the second time under the Nazis.' Then they told me to look after him. With our things packed we were waiting in the dining room. Sometime after nine o'clock in the evening they asked who the chef was. Dalimián Berka raised his hand and cooked us some dinner and tea. We didn't feel much like eating anyway. At about quarter past eleven, we were ordered to go to the bus that was already waiting for us in Vyšehradská Street. They formed a cordon. There were about fifty police agents and about eighteen of us. Friar Roman would hold on to me as he walked, I was carrying his bag. We walked slowly. Some young scoundrel stepped out of the line of police agents and yelled at Roman: 'will you move old man!' Another one grabbed him by the collar and ordered him to shut up."

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Operation K

The "Operation K" is a term for the illegal and forceful closing down of monasteries and male Catholic religious orders that took place in communist Czechoslovakia in April 1950. It was preceded by a show-case trial with Machalka et comp. with representatives of the orders, which was supposed to ideologically justify the operation in the eyes of the public. During the operation that followed, 219 religious institutions were eliminated and 2376 clergymen were interned in Czechoslovakia. It also meant the factual seizing of movable and immovable property of the religious orders, (the confiscation of immovable property was to formally follow later). The operation resulted in huge devastation to the cultural heritage of the nation - many monastic buildings were put at the mercy of decay, or even deliberately destroyed. Many rare books disappeared and much valuable movable property, such as old furniture and the like, was stolen. The Operation K was in short time followed by the similarly conceived, but much more gradual Operation R, directed against the female religious orders. The Operation B was intended to lead to a formal elimination of all orders, but to a large extent it wasn't realized, yet. The first night of the Operation K, during which the monasteries were raided, is also often referred to as "Bartolomějská noc," (St. Bartholemew's night). Source and further information: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akce_K.

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Prague 2, Emmaus

Available in: English | Česky

The monastery was founded on 21 November 1347 by King, (later Emperor), Charles IV. In addition to Virgin Mary, the patrons of the monastery’s church are Saints Adalbert, Procopius, Cyril, Methodius, and Jerome. Charles IV.’s choice of monastery patrons stemmed from his eastern political leanings, as illustrated by the permission to conduct Roman services in the Old Church Slavic language. The place name derives from the official consecration of the church on Easter Monday the 29th of March 1372 when the gospel about the resurrected Christ’s meeting with his disciples in Emmaus was read. The life in the monastery was disrupted several times during the 20th century to which the witnesses’ memories pertain. The Nazis confiscated the monastery in 1941. It was severely damaged during an Allies’ air raid in February 1945. It was closed in 1950 and its premises housed science and healthcare institutions until 1989. At present, the monastery, (as well as other Benedictine monasteries in Bohemia), is part of the Slavic Congregation of St. Adalbert formed in 1945.

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Move old man!

Operation K