Vaclav Čikl

Saint Václav (Alois Václav) Čikl (13 January 1900 - 4 September 1942), hieromartyr, was an Orthodox priest of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, then under the shelter of the Serbian Orthodox Church, parish priest of the cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague, executed in 1942 during the German occupation for helping to hide the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich. He was canonized by the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, together with the other Czech martyrs, on 8 February 2020. The text of our source breaks off during the trial of September 1942.

Life before Prague

He was born in 1900 at Slavětín, near Litovel in Moravia. In 1921 he graduated from the real gymnasium at Litovel. Then he did two years of theological studies organized at Olomouc by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. Bishop Gorazd ordained him priest on 26 June 1922 at Chudobín. After the conservative part gathered round Bishop Gorazd left the reformed Czechoslovak Church and founded the Moravian Orthodox Church, he became an Orthodox priest at Olomouc and Tovačov. He married in 1925 Marie, née Klišová, and they had two daughters, Olga and Taťána. From 1925 to 1938 he was a priest at Přerov. At the request of Bishop Gorazd, in 1938 he went to Prague, where he was appointed deputy parish priest of the cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

The assassination of Heydrich

From the beginning of the war he joined the Czechoslovak resistance together with the priest subordinate to him, Vladimir Petrek. The two, among other things, issued false baptismal certificates to persecuted Jews. They hid prominent Czechoslovak politicians and officers hunted by the Gestapo, such as Dr. Přemysl Šámal and Major Josef Sadilek. The terror of the German occupiers grew greatly with the arrival of Reinhard Heydrich in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The Czechoslovak government in exile in London resolved to kill him. From London a group of parachutists trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was sent, the team being led by Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík. Operation "Anthropoid" was carried out in Prague on 27 May 1942. Heydrich was only wounded, but died of his injuries on 4 June 1942. His death brought a wave of merciless reprisals by SS troops, including the destruction of whole villages and the killing of civilians. After the assassination the Orthodox Church gave the assassins shelter in the crypt of the church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Resslova Street.

Resistance members who were helping the parachutists turned, through Jan Zelenka Hajský, to a member of the church committee of the Orthodox church in Prague, Petr Fafek. He turned to the chairman of the committee, Jan Sonnevend, for help in hiding "a larger number of unregistered persons", explaining that it was a patriotic undertaking. Sonnevend spoke with the priest Dr. Petrek and they agreed that the persons could hide for a short time in the crypt of the church. When the parachutists were brought into the crypt, each was received individually by Fr. Petrek, and food and medical help were provided for the parachutists. After a time Václav Čikl also learned of the parachutists, and the sexton Václav Ornest; they did not enter into direct contact with the parachutists but took part in hiding them. The church was suitable for hiding because from the crypt in which they were hidden the parachutists could come out into the church at night and at certain hours of the day. The crypt lay under the whole length of the church, with seventy-⁠five burial niches, and had not been used for burials since the eighteenth century. The only entrance to the crypt was from the church and was well hidden, under the ambo. Meanwhile the priests Petrek and Čikl, and the chairman of the church community, Jan Sonnevend, realized that there were too many parachutists in the crypt and that they had been hidden there too long, and took various steps to move them elsewhere; the removal of all seven parachutists in a closed police car to a prison, where they were to be hidden further, was already ready, "but only a few hours spoiled this plan".

How the parachutists spent their last days hidden in the crypt is not known, and no witness lived to the end of the war. From Gestapo documents it is known that Fr. Vladimir Petrek took the most care of the parachutists. In the Gestapo notes it remained written: "Chaplain Dr. Petrek, who organized the whole care of the assassins and agents, went so far in his personal help to these people that he went himself to empty the bucket with excrement which served them as a toilet". Dr. Vladimir Petrek was arrested in the night of 17 to 18 June 1942. SS men surrounded and attacked the parachutists' hiding place on the early morning of 18 June. The parachutists were called to surrender, but refused and continued to resist. In the attack the Germans used the arrested priest Petrek as a shield as well. So as not to fall alive into the enemy's hands, the parachutists first destroyed all documentation, then took their own lives. The parachutists spent twenty-⁠one days in the church.

Arrest and death

Mass arrests of Orthodox faithful in Prague followed. In the early morning of 18 June 1942 Bishop Gorazd, the priest Václav Čikl, the chairman of the church community Jan Sonnevend, members of their families, members of the church choir and many others were arrested. All the arrested bore themselves bravely during torture and interrogation, betrayed no one, and so many lives were saved. The German newspaper Der Neue Tag wrote on 15 July 1942 about the arrested who had helped the Czech parachutists; photographs of Bishop Gorazd and of the priests Václav Čikl and Vladimir Petrek were also shown. The Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church intervened several times with the government of Milan Nedić to learn from the German military authorities the fate of Bishop Gorazd and of the Czech Orthodox. The trial against Bishop Gorazd, Fr. Čikl, Dr. Petrek and Jan Sonnevend took place before the summary court in Prague. The trial began on 3 September 1942, at 2 p.m., before a jury made up of senior Gestapo officers. The accused bore themselves bravely and with dignity, and although they knew what awaited them, did not... Here the text of the source breaks off. His death is dated to 4 September 1942, in Prague.