“I must admit that my sister had been affected by the everyday pressures back then more then I was. As she was about to leave primary school, she was admitted to a gymnasium type secondary school, called the eleven-year school back then, in Boskovice, where she had also doing quite well. She might get a B sometimes, but she did very well in the school leaving exams. However, they gave her very bad references, especially the National Committee (Národní výbor) and so on. She was told that they wouldn´t give her the recommendation needed to go to university. And the headmaster at the gymnasium - or the eleven-year school – told her quite openly: 'What did you think would happen? Your brother has been serving as an acolyte!' So she couldn´t even apply for university, despite the fact that she was best in her class or one of the best at least. So she ended up in a manufacturing plant in Letovice assembling egg grading machines, among other things. And she also went to Machine Tools Exhibition in Brno twice with the egg grader. She spent a year in the factory and then she applied for the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. And she succeeded, but only after an appeal. There was this high-ranking communist party official from Blansko, who would put in a good word for her, stating that she did a perfect job in the machine works. Under normal circumstances, she would like to become a teacher or to study pharmaceutics so she could be a pharmacist. But that just wasn´t possible, so she had to study at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology.”
“As I got a leave of absence I used to celebrate the Mass in a church in Rakovník square, in a closed church. And I have this comrade-in-arms from Štěpánov near Olomouc. We met recently and he recalled that he had been serving as a typist at our unit and every time he told our commander that he should grant me the leave of absence on Sunday. So he made it happen that I had my leave of absence on Sunday afternoon. And I would take the opportunity. And I had been even celebrating there, but never in the presence of other soldiers. Once there was this Slovak soldier with his colleague, they were from a different unit and just tuned up there one day, and they had been to the church. And to my surprise, our political officer learned about that, as the solider was obviously an informer. So he summoned me and told me not to celebrate again. It was remarkable that there were just two soldiers, yet our political officer learned about it.”
“They had a much better library back in Erfurt. They had, of course, mostly German and English literature. But as I was working on my doctoral thesis, it was in the early 80s, I also needed books in French or other languages. And I have this lovely memory, as professor Heinz Schürmann, a world-renowned expert, was also present, at the same time as I was, sometime in September. They were already starting a semester, unlike here, where we wouldn´t start until the beginning of October. He told me to visit him in his flat, stating that he had some books I wouldn´t find in the university library. So I came to visit him and I would pick out some books and make notes from them. So that´s my memory of him, this world-renowned expert... He decided to go to GDR in the 1950s, to support education. He made this sacrifice yet the fact was that he could still go not only to Western Germany, but also to Rome, to study and so on. He was allowed to do so. The conditions for traveling abroad differed from those in our country. It was much more severe inn our country. But he had been teaching there, publishing many works on New Testament studies, nowadays being considered an important contribution to this field of study. So those are my memories of Erfurt. And I have to say that they were quite friendly in Erfurt. As they felt we shared this one fate. That we were being controlled by the Communist authorities.”
Ladislav Tichý was born on March 27th 1948 in Olešnice in the Bohemia-Moravia borderlands. Since his early childhood, he wanted to become a priest. He studied Latin, German and Italian by himself. Despite his excellent performance at school, he hadn´t been allowed to attend secondary school due to political reasons and had to study Agricultural Mechanization. After his secondary school leaving exams, he started to study at the Brno University of Technology, finally realising his priestly calling at that time. In 1968, as there was again the possibility to study theology, he went to study at the reopened Faculty of Theology in Olomouc. He was ordained a priest on June 30th 1973, but before taking the job, he had to do his two-year compulsory military service in Rakovník. After leaving the army, he had been serving in Staré Brno parish for a year and spent the following year as a chaplain in Třebíč. In 1978, he moved to Litoměřice, serving as a prefect in local seminary. After a year, he started his doctoral studies at the Theological Faculty in Litoměřice, he had been visiting lectures in Erfurt, Germany, and in 1984, he received his Doctorate Degree in Theology. In the 80s, he taught Latin and Bible studies at the university. He attended conferences in Vienna, Graz, Brixen and Trier. After the collapse of the totalitarian regime, he started to work at the reopened Cyrilometodějská teologická fakulta UP in Olomouc, acting as its dean since 1991. Since 1995, he has been the head of its Biblical Studies Department.
Being ordained in Brno on June 30th 1973, from the right Ladislav Tichý, Richard Sikora, Karel Obrdlík, Jiří Mikulášek, František Koutný, Josef Dvořák
Being ordained in Brno on June 30th 1973, from the right Ladislav Tichý, Richard Sikora, Karel Obrdlík, Jiří Mikulášek, František Koutný, Josef Dvořák
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