Slovakian Cardinal Jan Korec, hero of underground Church in Communist era, dead at 91
October 26, 2015
Cardinal Jan Chryzostom Korec, SJ, the retired Bishop of Nitra, Slovakia, died on October 24 at the age of 91.
A man whose life has been closely tied to the troubled history of central Europe in the 20th century, Cardinal Korec was ordained secretly to serve the underground Church during the Communist era. He was discovered and arrested in 1960, and sentenced to 27 years in a prison camp. After several years in the gulag, he was released during the brief liberal resurgence of the "Prague Spring" in 1968. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in 1991. In 1998, he was chosen by the same Pontiff to preach the annual Lenten Retreat at the Vatican.
Formally appointed Bishop of Nitra in 1990--39 years after he had been secretly consecrated as a bishop--Cardinal Korec continued in that office until he retired in 2005 at the age of 81. He was residing in Nitra at the time of his death.
In a message of condolence, addressed to the bishops’ conference of Slovakia, Pope Francis paid tribute to the deceased prelate as a “zealous and generous pastor who, during his long ecclesial ministry showed himself to be a fearless witness to the Gospel and a strenuous defender of the Christian faith and the rights of the human person.”
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