Technical agreement regarding the Prague Cathedral finally signed

Members of the Catholic Church and the State representatives of the Prague Castle finally came to a technical agreement about the common use of the Cathedral of St. Vitus. Catholic church will have to pay a symbolic fee for its usage (20 EUR a month), the other costs connected with its operation will be on the State’s expense.

This agreement is trying to resolve a current difficult situation, because the Cathedral as a buiding belongs to the State but the internal equipment to the Metropolitan Canonry. Based on this solution it will be possible the Canonry to supervise the visitors attendance in order to keep the solemnity of the place. Management of the Prague Castle will ensure a security of the church and of the all exposed liturgical objects. The State will also pay the expenses that will be connected with the maintenance of the shrine.

However, the contract is not resolving the dispute regarding the ownership, the decision is still in the hands of the courts. The argument will be for the third time handled by the Prague City Court as the Church disclaimed the last decision that the Cathedral, which was in the fifties taken by the communists from the Catholic church, belongs to the State.

Codex Gigas exhibition extended

The unique Codex Gigas known also as the Devil’s Bible, which has returned to the Czech Republic after many hundreds of years just for an exhibition can stay a bit longer. The famous book is exposed in the National Library, Klementinum, and because of an enormous interest from the side of the public, the exposition was prolonged until the March 9th 2008. The number of visitors is limited due to a high protection and only sixty persons in an hour can see this biggest hand written book in the world.

The Bible has its origins probably in the year 1229. It was made in a small Benedictine monastery in Bohemia but at the end of the thirty-year old war (1618-1648) the manuscript as many other art pieces was taken by the Swedes as a war plunder for their queen. Since that time it has left Sweden only twice: in 1970 was introduced in the U.S. and eight years ago in Berlin. It got the unusual knick-name: the Devil’s Bible because according to a legend a monk in order to make such a piece of art made a pact with devil who helped him to create it but the he had to put a devil’s picture inside

The manuscript is unusually large even for today’s parameters. No doubts that in the middle age it belonged to the seven wonders of the world. Codex Gigas weights 75 kilos and measures 900 x 505 x 220 mm. It contains 312 of vellum sheets which is 624 pages. The historians estimate that a scribe monk had to dedicate at least 20 years to create such a piece of art. The Codex includes the entire Latin Bible in a pre-Vulgate version, encyclopedia Etymologiae, Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Cosmas of Prague's Chronicle of Bohemia, and many others. The entire document is written in Latin.

69th anniversary of Palach’s death

‘It is a self-sacrifice in front of which one has to with humility and honor evacuate all the acts in life.’ said Jaroslava Čajová, member of organization Janua, responsible for the tenth gathering in memory of the death of Jan Palach who, as a protest against the political development after the invasion of the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia, burnt himself on the January 16th 1969. His death became a symbol of a resistance against a totalitarian regime.

A 21 year-old student of the School of Philosophy of the Prague Charles University made his act of protest on one of the biggest public places in Prague, the Wenceslas square. He tried to awaken the society from the lethargy after the August occupation by the Soviet Army. As a result of burns he died in a hospital three days after. His funeral on the 25th of January became a big manifestation for freedom and democracy. In 1991 Jan Palach received in memoriam by the president Havel the highest state award – Commendation Ribbon of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.

People reminded his death also in Všetaty, the village where he was born and lived. The ex-minister of culture, Štěpánek during his speech mentioned that the biggest reference of Palach’s death is a hope that it is possible to move a man’s conscience and that the Czech nation owns people that are willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom, human dignity and the truth.

Unique or another of many?

A Czech film Vaclav, that had its premiere in cinemas in the beginning of December last year, got immediately after its release on the top of the Czech movie chart. But is the film really as unique and different as some of the critiques announced? Does it really deserve such a big audience?

Vaclav is based on a true story of a man who got a presidential amnesty and of whom we would simply say that is not normal. His intellectual growth stopped when he was a teenager. He lives in a village house just with his mother, goes to work when he feels like it, basicaly he does all the time only whatever he wants. A little mentally ill Vaclav is not able to think in wider associations neither is he able to see the consequences of his acts. He cares only for a present moment, he ignores the future. Nevertheless, the past caused him a big problem. He misses a lot his father who tried to emigrate during the ex-regime but did not succeed and died. Vaclav suffers by his absence to such a level that he starts to imagine him; he speaks to him, and even asks for an advice. It is clear that the village people are not really in favor of Vaclav’s crazy acts and it is only his mother who is able limit him, but only a bit.

The comic scenes of Vaclav’s ‘interesting ideas’ are altered with more serious topics such as responsibility, freedom, ability to forgive, importance of family love and trust. The problem is that those themes are only proposed but not developed further on. Vaclav offers a very strong story but the potential of the film was not really used as it could have been. The tragical things are not showed in their deepness, they became quite superficial. It is a pitty, the film could be really unique, but the difference from many other ‘nice’ tragic-comedies that have been already made in a past is not so big.

Better times for the Church...maybe

It seems that after 18 years the State might finally recognize a place of the Christians in the Czech Republic! The government committee prepared an agreement regarding a restitution of the property that was in 1949 confiscated from the Churches which has a high chance to be approved soon by the parliament. The amount of 83 billions CZK (3,20 billions EUR) should be a compensation for 226 hectares of fields, forests, and lakes that were taken away from dioceses and parishes after the communist take over. Areas that belonged to the religious orders and congregations should be returned as well. ‘These, which today take part of the army complexes or have been rebuilt, will not be given back, but also reimbursed’, informed the Vice-Minister of Culture, Jaromír Talíř.

Amount of 83 billions should be divided between the seventeen churches, from which the biggest part will be given to the Roman-Catholics. This would help in a future to separate financially the churches from the State. The agreement also describes a mechanism how should such the discontinuation work: two thirds of 83 billions will be paid during the next sixty years, one billion each year. The land fund would recompense the last third in a form of 19 hectares of fields and 61 hectares of forests. The State contribution to the churches should from 2009 gradually decrease by a desetina each year and stop completely in 2019.

However, it is not all the property that the State would be so eager to give back. As most of the Church buildings were restituted already in1991, the Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague remains nationalized. It will probably stay like this for a while as in this case it has somehow been forgotten who was the original owner and the State is ready to use all the possible means to keep the shrine under the 1954 court’s decision ‘all people’s possession’. The last, already the third trial between the Roman-Catholic Church and the Czech state, lost in September 2007 the Church. Surprisingly, the verdict was given by the same judge who two times before decided that the cathedral belonged to the Catholics.