Ján Eugen Kočiš

coat of arms

Ján Eugen Kočiš (born June 25, 1926 in Pozdišovce ; † December 4, 2019 in Prešov ) was a Slovak clergyman and auxiliary bishop of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church in the Czech Republic , based in Prague . He was the second oldest living bishop in the Byzantine tradition worldwide.

Life

Ján Eugen Kočiš, the youngest of eight children, studied philosophy and theology at the seminary in Prešov. He received on 1 January 1951, the approval of Bishop Pavel Peter Gojdič the ordination in the hospital chapel in Rožňava by Bishop Róbert Pious . In 1967 he was secretly ordained a bishop by Bishop Felix Maria Davídek in Brno. In 1987 he again consecrated Bedrich Provazník as bishop. After the founding of the Greek Catholic Episcopal Vicarate in Prague in 1993, he became its director and 1996 Vicar General of the newly established Prague Apostolic Exarchate.

Pope John Paul II appointed him auxiliary bishop in the Czech Republic and titular bishop of Abrittum on April 24, 2004 . The Apostolic Exarch of Serbia and Montenegro Djura Džudžar donated him conditionally again episcopal ordination on May 15 of the same year ; Co- consecrators were Ján Babjak SJ , Bishop of Prešov , and Ladislav Hučko , Apostolic Exarch of the Czech Republic. On October 7, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI. his resignation request submitted for reasons of age.

Victims of persecution

Ján Eugen Kočiš was a victim of the persecution of churches from 1948 to 1989. Ján Eugen Kočiš experienced the communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia and the ban on the Greek Catholic Church as a young candidate for the priesthood. Like many other Greek Catholic clergymen who opposed the oppression of their church by the state, he was arrested. In 1953 he was released. From 1955 to 1958 he was able to live underground and work as a priest. He was tried several times and eventually sentenced to four years' imprisonment, loss of civil rights and a five-year stay ban in the Prešov and Košice regions. As a political prisoner in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, he had to live and work in the technical auxiliary battalions of the Czechoslovak People's Army in labor camps in Bohemia, where the "enemies of the regime" were interned. From 1960 to 1968 he had to work in the Plynostav plant in Pardubice.

Web links

• Entry on Ján Eugen Kočiš on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Biographical information: Ján Eugen Kočiš (Czech)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} "Zomrel gréckokatolícky emeritný biskup Ján Eugen Kočiš" on presov.korzar.sme.sk from December 4, 2019 (Slovak)