Jiří Kvapil

* 1949

  • “I set out for Prague on Saturday. I went to the address of the apartment. It was an old shabby house. I didn’t even know the name on the door. Nonetheless, it was all according to the description, so I rang the bell. A man opened the door and said: ‘What can I do for you?’ I said: ‘Balú sent me, my name is Ká and I’m looking for Tinťa.’ At that point he stretched out his left hand and shook my hand. ‘Come in.’ So I went in. He immediately rattling off, without even knowing me… it was the first time we’ve met. But the atmosphere and the Scout spirit was there between us, that recommendation from Balú and such. No obstacle, no barrier, nothing. He immediately explained that there was a group of men who were in the same situation as me, studying and preparing themselves for priesthood. ‘It will take five years. You’ll get study materials. You’ll go to seminars there and there.’ That meant Prague. I rolled my eyes because to travel so far, to Prague, that wasn’t easy. ‘Go home now, think it through and make a decision. If you go through all this, you’ll be ordained.’ He rattled all of that off. I told him: ‘I’m married and have a family.’ – ‘It doesn’t matter.’ – ‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter when it does matter?’ He explained that they were studying to be ordained as Eastern Catholic priests. I only knew that by hearsay and the Eastern spirituality was not really close to my heart. However, he explained that I would study the Eastern rite as well and then would be ordained in the Eastern rite, where married men are allowed to be ordained.”

  • “I was on a training camp in the woods with him, we shared a tent. We got out. What was happening? Stir everywhere. I noticed the planes flying in the sky, one after another. Something was going on. Someone had field glasses, so I looked and said: ‘Guys, it’s the Russians!’ You need to understand that there had been a major military exercise here. So there had been many Russians here. But it was like the exercise in June or July was not ending. They were still here but then they finally started to move. But no one knew they were just staying right past the borders. The politics of the attack must have been long prepared, I think. I said: ‘It’s the Russians!’ At that moment someone came with a transistor radio turned on. ‘Occupation. Planes are landing at the Ruzyně airport. They crossed the borders. They attacked us from all sides except for Austria and western Germany, apart from that they’re flooding the republic.’ There was horror, tears. Everyone knew it was over. All the promises and hopes of the Prague Spring were dashed in that moment. We lit the campfire, it was around noon instead of the evening, and that day the forest training was terminated. Strong impressions and strong experience, the gilwell circle by the fire. We felt the unity of people and that a struggle for survival is ahead of us. Nobody knew what was going to happen.”

  • “Religious education was still taught at school back then and our parents enrolled us, of course. The headmaster came into class. ‘Everyone who wants to take the religious education class, get up.’ So we got up. There were more of us, maybe half of the class. He didn’t say anything but even then we felt that it was something shameful, a flaw. This happened again every year and every year there were less and less students getting up. I have to say that I looked forward to seventh grade being over, that I wouldn’t have to get up anymore because religion was only taught until then. And it got worse every year. The communist shame and the love for the Soviet Union that was promoted everywhere, there was no escape from it. I know that from about fifth grade I started feeling very uncomfortable at school. Sometimes we were hauled over the coals to the headmaster. And there we heard: ‘How come you’re not a Pioneer? Why aren’t you a Pioneer?’ It wasn’t easy to answer. One didn’t know what to say. We were just kids after all.”

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    Olomouc, 14.01.2019

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One who embarks on a life journey with God will not lose his way

Jiří Kvapil on a picture from 1980
Jiří Kvapil on a picture from 1980
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Jiří Kvapil was born September 1, 1949 in Olomouc. His parents had to join a cooperative in Lešany in the 1950s. Father couldn’t work as a lawyer and had to provide for his six children working as a garbage collector. In primary school, Jiří was bullied as he took religious education classes and wasn’t a Pioneer. From 1964 he studied at the Secondary School of Electrical Engineering in Mohelnice. In 1968 he helped restore the Scout movement in Olomouc. He took part in the protests and activities of academia after the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia. After graduating high school, he started studying at the Brno University of Technology but left his studies after one year. He led a Scout group in Olomouc and organized a Scout summer camp in 1969 but the next year he was drafted and served his military service in Sušice in Šumava. After his return to civilian life he got married and got a good job as an inspection technician of the Potraviny Ostrava company after some rigmaroles. He led a secret group of religious education for his three kids and his friends’ kids. He himself attended secret theology seminars of Josef Zvěřina and then, after Zvěřina’s arrest, seminars in Prague, led by Václav Dvořák. After completing his studies, he was ordained as a priest of the Eastern Catholic rite on September 14, 1986. He continued educating kids and youth and was devoted to his priestly service of caring for the sick. He helped restore the Scouting movement in Olomouc after the Velvet Revolution, as well as the training centers for Scout leaders and patrol leaders. He succeeded in implementing Christian religious education classes in high schools and vocational schools all over Olomouc district a he had taught at several schools for nine years himself. In 1998 he became an administrator of the Greek Catholic parish in Olomouc and has celebrated mass for Greek Catholic believers every Sunday to this day.