Vojtěch Šíma

* 1947

  • "An old priest said to me at that time, at that revolutionary time: 'Man, it's art to pray the breviary. Because television... it's all new things, beautiful things. Man, I don't even have time to pray the breviary.' So it was something new and beautiful coming... But what I see: I have one beautiful example I want to say. At that revolutionary time, a grandmother came to me in the rectory and said to me, 'Father, I am so guilty! I am so guilty!' And she says, 'You know, I didn't know what horrors the Communists were doing, now it's all coming out.' Right? It started to be talked about. And I said, 'Grandma, so what? You didn't do anything, did you?' And she said, 'I was there. I was a member of the Communist Party. And I said, 'Grandma, if everybody saw it that way, it would be a revolution!' That would be a real revolution. Confession of guilt: here I was wrong. I said, 'Grandma, my hat's off to you.' And so I think - even now, times being what they are - I think a lot of people haven't re-evaluated that life. And they haven't said: It was my fault. It was my fault, too. But right away, somewhere... they knew... they got into some other party or something at the time. And internally they stayed the same, and externally they started to show themselves differently. And that's damaging the revolution. That grandmother, I say - if there was this mindset, that would be the real revolution."

  • "The company commander's name was Ivan. And in '68, when the Russians came, he was like, 'Not anymore, starting today' - he was Slovak - 'I'm not Ivan anymore, from today I'm Martin. And now write...' The order was signed by Martin, he put the surname there. I thought: Well, it's nice that he doesn't agree with it. Now: in the sixty-eighth we were getting such nonsense orders, like we mustn't get disarmed if the Warsaw [Pact] troops came, we mustn't get disarmed. But we must not resist. I know we built a tank - we were tank troops - so we put a tank in the gate so the Russians couldn't get in. Those officers didn't know for the first week, they didn't know whose they were. Maybe not even a week later the company commander came in, so angry, from the headquarters and said to me, 'Write Ivan. Don't write Martin anymore.' I said: Oh, they've already been instructed. They already know whose they are."

  • "I found out in the army that those officers, they're a bunch. That they are unprincipled people. You could tell there that they were mostly ochmelki. Always on the booze. And I had a report that said, I think it came from the commune, 'He's a religious khanatic.' That's what it said, in red. 'He's a religious khanatic and he disagrees with the regime.' I was a senior, so I got hold of the materials, so I read it. I thought, 'I'm a khanatik?' But I was a sergeant major, if you were in the army, that was a position for an officer or a professional soldier. So I was doing that. So I had a fairly good army in that I was in charge of rations and material support. And I also had time for myself there in that I had my quarters where I could hole up. But I'll tell you, it's interesting: we didn't have to go to church... or we were told not to go to church. I went to church. I was in Budejovice in the army. And there you went to the monastery church, it was in the other corner of the square, as the tower is, and the monastery was in the other corner. And I always went there. So I would kneel down behind one of the columns there and pray there. And one soldier came there, another one. And now he saw that there was a soldier behind the pillar, he said, 'That's a cop, he's guarding it.' And he went to pray behind the other pillar. And that was Vojta Cikrle, the later bishop of Brno. So we were there, we didn't even know each other. Then, when I was in the seminary, he said to me: 'You, weren't you in Budejovice in the army?' I said: 'Well.' - 'Didn't you go?' - 'I did.' - 'So I was afraid of you...' So that's a bit paradoxical, isn't it? I guess we were all praying for the same thing behind different pillars. So we're on very good terms, he's already emeritus, isn't he, the Bishop of Brno."

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    Velehrad, 14.07.2022

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The Velvet Revolution must take place in our conscience

Vojtěch Šíma in 2022
Vojtěch Šíma in 2022
zdroj: Během natáčení

Vojtěch Šíma was born on 11 December 1947 in the Sudetenland in the village of Heřmanice u Oder. His family originally came from nearby Spálov, in Heřmanice his parents chose a larger cottage after the war after the Germans were displaced and started farming. All seven children were brought up in faith. In 1950, the Šimas reluctantly agreed to join the local JZD, and their father worked there as a zookeeper. Vojtěch had no choice after primary school because of an unfavourable political assessment and entered an agricultural apprenticeship. Later, he transferred to the secondary agricultural school, where he passed his matriculation exam. From 1967 to 1969 he served two years driving tanks in České Budějovice. Then in 1970 he entered the seminary in Litoměřice and on 28 June 1975 he was ordained a priest in Olomouc. During the period of normalisation, he served as parochial vicar in Uherské Hradiště, Staré Město and Otrokovice. He met illegally with other clergymen and prepared many activities for the faithful. He refused to join the loyal priestly association Pacem in terris. After the regime change he was the dean of the Zlín deanery and then until 2010 the rector of the Archbishop‘s Seminary in Olomouc. Since 2000 he has also been the episcopal delegate for the permanent formation of priests of the Olomouc Archdiocese. From 1998 to 2010 he was also canon of the Metropolitan Chapter of St. Wenceslas in Olomouc. In June 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed him a chaplain of His Holiness. In 2010 he became Dean of the Collegiate Chapter in Kroměříž, and at the same time he continues to serve as Rector of the Stojanov pilgrimage and spiritual retreat house in Velehrad, where he also lives.