July 2001

Father Trcka was born on July 6, 1886 in Frydlante, Moravia in what is today the Czech Republic. An easy progression led him under the influence of grace to complete his education at the Redemptorist Juvenate, then enter the novitiate of the Prague Province and make his first vows on August 25, 1904. After that he continued his philosophical and theological studies and was ordained on July 17, 1910. His desire to work with Greek Catholics in their rite was blessed by his superiors, and he was sent along with Fr Stanislav Nekula, C.SS.R. to Lviv in October, 1919. There the two missionaries studied Ukrainian and Old Slavonic and also the Byzantine Rite. Soon Fr Trcka was working successfully as a missionary giving popular missions alongside his confreres of the newly-erected Ukrainian Vice-Province. In 1921 he was sent to work among the Greek Catholics of Eastern Slovakia and Transcarpathia.

From 1924 to 1930 Fr Trcka was the Rector of the monastery in Stropko. From May 1935 he was also Visitator to the Basilian Sisters in Presov and Uzhorod. Between the years 1936-1942 he was the Rector at the monastery in Michalovce. From March 23, 1946 he became the first Vice-Provincial of the new Vice-Province of Michalovce.

The Communists in Czechoslovakia began to implement their plans to liquidate the Greek Catholic Church in that country in 1948. Fr Trcka was forced to move first to Sabinov and then to the monastery in Podolinec, where all the religious were gathered together by force. Here he was tried and sentenced to prison for twelve years. His years in prison at Mirove did not break him. Notwithstanding his poor health, his spirit was strong, and, when the opportunity presented itself, he celebrated the Divine Liturgy. In 1954 he became gravely ill with uraemia. The illness became so bad that he was transferred to a hospital in Brno. At the end of March he returned to prison and in April was transferred to the prison in Leopoldov. In 1958 on the feast of Easter Fr Trcka sang Easter matins in a room surrounded by 18 priests. For this crime he had to spend a week in solitary confinement, freezing and without food. Fr Trcka did not recover from the resultant damage to his health, and he died in prison of pneumonia on March 23, 1959. In October, 1969 his remains were transferred to Michalovce.

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