Czech Cardinal Dominik Duka, who had been the Archbishop of Prague from 2010 to 2022, died in a Prague hospital in the early hours of this morning at the age of 82, the Prague Archbishopric announced on its Facebook page.
Duka underwent acute surgery at the Prague Military Hospital on 6 October and was discharged from hospital last week, but had to be hospitalised again on Saturday. He said in recent days that he had been close to death at some points.
The requiem mass will be held in St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle, where Duka will be laid to rest in the archbishops’ tomb on 15 November, the Archbishopric said. In the preceding two days, visitors may pay their respects to Duka in person at All Saints Church at Prague Castle. A book of condolence will be available in the reception of the Archbishop’s Palace from today.
After Duka’s death, the Czech Catholic Church has no cardinal, which has happened several times since the establishment of Czechoslovakia.
For example, after the death of Karel Kaspar in April 1941, his successor as head of the Prague archbishopric, Josef Beran, did not become a cardinal until February 1965. Shortly after this, after years of internment and a subsequent ban on being in Prague, the communist regime let Beran go to Rome, where he stayed until his death. After the death of cardinal Frantisek Tomasek in 1992, his successor Miloslav Vlk was named cardinal only in November 1994.
Duka was an anti-Communist dissident, and was imprisoned for his work in the underground church during the Czechoslovak Communist era.
After the collapse of the regime, he negotiated the restitution of church property as head of the Czech Catholic Church. Under the law on the property settlement between the Czech state and churches, real estate worth several dozens of billions of crowns was returned to the Roman Catholic Church, and it has been gradually receiving CZK 47.2 billion to compensate for unreturned property seized by the communist regime.
Duka received the Order of the White Lion from President Milos Zeman in 2016. In 2001, he was decorated with a medal of merit from President Vaclav Havel.
Born as Jaroslav Duka on 26 April 1943, he received the name Dominik after he entered the Dominican Order in 1968. He was ordained in June 1970, but had worked as a priest for only five years when he lost the necessary state approval, and worked for 15 years in the Skoda Plzen industrial company.
He continued to work illegally as a priest, and from 1981 to 1982, he was imprisoned in Plzen-Bory, where he met the dissident Havel, later to become president. Nevertheless, Duka remained active in the Dominican Order and became its head in 1986. He led it until his appointment as the Bishop of Hradec Kralove in 1998.
Duka assumed the office of Archbishop of Prague in April 2010 and two years later, he was appointed Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. In 2022, he was replaced as archbishop by Jan Graubner.
