25 August
Feast day of Blessed Methodius Dominic Trčka, C.Ss.R.

He spent his early years as a priest preaching parish missions.  In 1919 he was sent to work among the Greek Catholics in the area of Halic, in Galicia, and then in Slovakia in the Eparchy (Diocese) of Prešov, where he carried on intense missionary activity.  It was at this time that Fr. Dominic assumed the name Methodius.  He did this in memory of St. Methodius.  The saintly brothers St. Cyril and St. Methodius are the apostles of the Slav peoples.  In March 1935 he was appointed by the Congregation for Oriental Churches as apostolic visitor of the Basilian monks in Prešov and in Uzhorod.  When the vice-province of Michalovce was founded, Fr. Trčka was appointed vice-provincial on 23rd March 1946.  He began to work zealously to found new houses and to form young Redemptorists.

When the communist regime came to power in 1946, the adverse attitude of the State towards the church grew.  The Redemptorist were spied upon, especially in churches during their sermons.  Fr. Methodius, as superior, was frequently hauled before the authorities.  They reprimanded him for allowing the use of the pulpit against the present regime.  On 19th July 1948 members of the local police forced their way into the monastery and searched the premises, but they were unable to find any compromising material.

During the night of the 13th-14th April 1950, the Czechoslovak government suppressed all the religious communities.  After a summary trial, Fr. Trčka was sentenced to twelve years of imprisonment, during which he was subjected to lengthy interrogations and torture.  He did not suspect that Christmas Eve 1958 would be ‘fatal’ to him.  For “singing a Christmas carol,” he was locked in solitary confinement and died there on 23rd March 1959 as a consequence of contracting pneumonia.

“When the guard heard what he was singing he called the supervisor who came along with one or two others who took him away and as punishment they put him in isolation.  This was a prison within a prison.  These cells were dark and had a cement floor, and the bed itself was a large block of cold cement.  The prisoner was allowed to sleep on it but was not able to get a good sleep.  In fact, the prisoner was allowed only a single blanket.  They were only fed every other day.  So if you were there three days, you fasted two days and ate one.

“After a number of weeks I thought that Fr. Trčka had pneumonia, he certainly had high fever (40°^c), he definitely had , the only consolation was that they transferred him from the cement floor cell to another isolation cell pneumonia in both lungs with a wooden floor and a straw filled mattress that he was able to sleep on.  His fever subsided a bit, but that was only due to the fact that there were several of us looking after him.

“When he was close to his death, in the evening hours, only the elderly Redemptorist prisoners were in the cell.  Due to their age, they were not required to go to work.  …  One evening we returned from the afternoon shift at 10.00 p.m., our father lay dead for over an hour.  It was 23rd March 1959.”

Only after the renewal of the activities of the Byzantine Catholic church in 1968 were the Redemptorists able to ask for the transfer of the mortal remains of Fr. Trčka from the prison cemetery in Leopoldov.  The exhumation took place 16th October 1969 and his remains were transferred to the Redemptorist plot in the cemetery of Michalovce the following day.

In 1969, his confreres put forth a request to clear his name, but they did not receive a positive response.  It was only after the fall of communism in 1990, that Fr. Methodius Dominic Trčka's name was cleared by the Regional Court in Kosice, and thus the state took the responsibility for his unjust imprisonment, sentencing and death.

Fr. Methodius's contribution to the expansion of the Byzantine Catholic Church in Slovakia was considerable.  His passion for the House of God was great.  He believed so much in the Catholic Church and the ideals of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.