Ján Sokol

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archbishop's coat of arms from Ján Sokol

Ján Sokol (born October 9, 1933 in Jacovce , Czechoslovakia , now Slovakia ) is retired Archbishop of Trnava .

Life

Ján Sokol attended the grammar school in Topoľčany . He studied theology and philosophy in Bratislava and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 23, 1957 in what is now the Archdiocese of Bratislava-Trnava . He was first in Šurany to 1958 as chaplain pastoral workers, then in Levice to 1966, from 1958 to 1960. In 1960 pastoral ministry as a chaplain in Bratislava-Nové Mesto , then from 1966 to 1968 in Štúrovo . From 1968 to 1970 he served as prefect in the Roman Catholic seminary in Bratislava. From 1970 to 1971 he worked pastorally in Sereď , where he also served as dean until 1975 .

On November 14, 1987 he was appointed Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Trnava. Sokol was then appointed auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Trnava on May 19, 1988 , at the same time as titular bishop of Luni . The then Apostolic Nuncio in Poland and later Cardinal Francesco Colasuonno donated him the episcopal ordination on June 12, 1988 in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist . The appointments of bishops in 1988 ( Antonín Liška , Jan Lebeda , Ján Sokol) were the first after many years that could be negotiated between state and church. This was seen as a compromise between what the church needed and what the communist regime wanted to allow.

Ján Sokol was appointed Archbishop of Bratislava-Trnava on July 26, 1989. The official inauguration took place on September 10, 1989. Since August 31, 2000, Sokol was also chairman of the Slovak Bishops' Conference .

On February 14, 2008 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him . as Archbishop of the rebuilt Archdiocese of Trnava. Pope Benedict XVI On April 18, 2009, he accepted Ján Sokol's resignation, as required by canon law for reasons of age, and appointed the Redemptorist Róbert Bezák as his successor.

According to press reports, Sokol was an informer for the Communist State Security StB until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. At a commemorative mass for Jozef Tiso in 2008, he said that the Tisos dictatorship was a “time of relative prosperity” for Slovakia.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pope sends controversial Bishop Sokol into retirement , Spiegel Online , April 19, 2009
  2. ↑ Thomas Seiterich: Victory of a Spy , in: Publik-Forum of July 27, 2012.
  3. ↑ Slovak bishop sympathizes with fascism , in: Tages-Anzeiger from April 18, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Sokol, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Slovak clergyman and retired Archbishop of Trnava
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Jacovce , Slovakia