Czech Republic

1940s & 2002 -

St. Vincent Pallotti’s first missionary to the Czech Republic, Fr. Richard Henekes SAC, was declared Blessed by Pope Francis on September 15, 2019. BThe German born Henkes fled to the country during WWII, where he worked in the Ostrava-Opava Diocese. Condemning Nazism, he was sent to Dachau Concentration Camp, where he wrote the words, “someone has to say it.” During the 1945 Typhus Epidemic, he enlisted to serve the sick. He soon incurred the disease, and died a martyr of charity’s death.

Decades later in 2002, the Polish Pallottines returned to the Czech Republic through Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, where they were parochially entrusted with the pilgrimage site of the country's Patron, St. Wenceslas. By 2005, in the same diocese as Bl. Richard, the Pallottines were further entrusted with the Parish of Fulnek. In 2009, their pastoral duties at Stará Boleslav (St. Wenceslas) were transferred to the Parish of Jáma and the Church of God's Mercy. On July 2 2010, the community in Jámy was expanded by two more parishes, St. St. Wenceslas and St. Mary Magdalena, in Radešínská Svratka and Olešná. The Society also has their spiritual administration based in Radešínská Svratka.