Arnošt Vykoukal

Abbot Arnošt Vykoukal

Arnošt Vykoukal OSB (born May 7, 1879 in Žernovka near Mukařov , Austro-Hungarian monarchy as Ernst Vykoukal ; † September 10, 1942 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a Czech Benedictine and prior and from 1925 abbot of the Emaus monastery in Prague's New Town . After 1919 he made great contributions to the spiritual and moral renewal of the Emaus Abbey and Czech Catholicism.

Life

Arnošt Vykoukal came from a poor background. As a teenager he spent a year with a German family as part of a student exchange, which enabled him to speak German very well. He was then a student at the Emautin Oblate School and then entered the Emaus monastery as a novice . On November 11, 1901, he took the religious vows . After studying philosophy at the Charles University in Prague and theology in the Archabbey of Beuron , he was ordained a priest on September 22, 1906 by the Prague Archbishop Leo Skrbenský of Hříště . He was then sent to Leuven in Belgium and England for further studies .

After the German convent of the Beuron congregation including the abbot Albanus Schachleiter had to leave the Emaus monastery after the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1919, the monastery got into political turmoil. In addition, a large part of the monastery buildings was occupied by the state conservatory. In 1922 Arnošt Vykoukal was appointed prior and administrator of the monastery. Subsequently, he endeavored to stabilize monastic life and improve relations between state and church. This stopped the political attacks against the Emauskloster. After Albanus Schachleiter resigned as abbot in 1924, Arnošt Vykoukal was elected as his successor in the first ballot in September 1925. In this function he renewed the tradition of church services in the Old Church Slavonic language , which developed the cult of Slavic apostles and the worship services were again attended to more. By 1929 the community in Emaus had grown to 68 members, including 22 priests, 13 novices, four clerics and 29 lay brothers. From 1933 until the beginning of the war in 1939 he organized liturgical weeks in which not only Czech but also foreign and Beuron theologians took part. The events followed a return to the roots of early Christianity . At the same time, Vykoukal was a proponent of the liturgical apostolate . This made the monastery an important center of liturgical reform and the renewal of Czech Catholicism.

After the destruction of the rest of Czech Republic in 1939, the Emaus Abbey was occupied by the German army on July 16, 1942 . The room of Abbot Vykoukal was searched by the Gestapo because he was accused of "Czechizing" the monastery. He had to leave Prague and lived temporarily in Pilsen, where he was forbidden to contact the community. On August 7, 1942, he was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died of dysentery on September 10, 1942 .

literature

• Jaroslav Šebek: Abbots Alban Chess Manager OSB and Ernst Vykoukal OSB . In: The Benedictines and the Third Reich . Laacher Hefte No. 7, Maria Laach 2002, pp. 29–48
• Inge Steinsträßer: Wanderer between the political powers. Father Nikolaus von Lutterotti OSB (1892–1955) and the Grüssau Abbey in Lower Silesia . Böhlau Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20429-7 , pp. 87 and 91

Web links

• Biogram (Czech), p. 8