Cardinal Dominik Duka, former Prague archbishop, dies at 82

PRAGUE (AP) — Cardinal Dominik Duka, a former Archbishop of Prague who was persecuted by the communist regime and later helped negotiate compensation for churches for property seized during that era, has died.

Duka died early Tuesday at a hospital in Prague, the Prague Archdiocese said in a statement. He was 82. The cause of death was not given.

He was born as Jaroslav Václav Duka on April 26, 1943, in the city of Hradec Králové.

After the Communists took power in 1948 in Czechoslovakia, the Catholic Church and other churches faced fierce persecution from the state. Churches were seized, outspoken priests jailed or even executed and those allowed to lead services did so under the watchful eye of the secret police.

Duka secretly joined the Dominican Order in 1968 and adopted the name of Dominik in its honor.

He was ordained two years later but was banned in 1975 from performing priestly funcitions. He still continued in the church activities for which he was sentenced to 15 months in jail in 1981.

Duka was jailed in the Bory prison in Plzeň, where he spent time with Václav Havel, then a dissident playwright who later led the 1989 anti-Communist Velvet Revolution and became the country’s president.

Duka led the funeral mass for Havel at Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral when he died in December 2011.

Th previous year, he settled a long-term dispute with the state over the ownership of the biggest Czech cathedral.

Duka served as Prague Archbishop between from 2010 and 2022 and was named a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

During his time as archbishop, the Czech Republic — a country considered one of the most secular in Europe — approved a law to return religious properties confiscated during the Communist era, an attempt to draw another line under the country’s troubled past. Under the plan, the Czech government agreed to pay some $3 billion to the Czech church in compensation over 30 years.

Duka was known for his conservative views and was accused of downplaying cases of clerical abuse.

Several courts, including the country’s highest legal authority, the Constitutional Court, dismissed a lawsuit he brought against two controversial plays staged at a theater festival in 2018 that mocked the Catholic Church.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala said he admired Duka’s “bravery and activities during the time of totalitarianism and appreciated his important role in the renewal of the church in a democratic society.”