The Prague Post Online: News: Battle over St. Vitus intensifies

December 2nd, 2008

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Battle over St. Vitus intensifies

Church resists handing over control of iconic cathedral

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 28th, 2007 issue

Following a Supreme Court ruling last week, church officials have reluctantly agreed to hand over control of St. Vitus Cathedral, but refuse to provide a time frame. Meanwhile, a church attorney says he may take the case to Europe’s human rights court if necessary.

The 13-year battle for control of Prague’s iconic St. Vitus is the most visible tug of war between church and state in a country still struggling to reconcile the two institutions. Nearly two decades after the downfall of the officially atheist communist regime, the church-state relationship remains thorny and filled with legal and logistical dilemmas.

St. Vitus has been in church hands for most of the past 650 years. The communists seized control of it in 1954, along with church property throughout the country, and declared that it belonged to the people. Church staff, including priests, were made state employees, a status they still have.

The church maintains that the takeover, which remains in effect, was illegal and should be nullified.

As for the St. Vitus dispute, Petr Zderčík, the attorney representing the Catholic Church, said, “This case has already affected church-state relations, and my clients hope that this current negative attitude will be improved in the future.”

Court decisions over the years have tossed the ownership of St. Vitus, the architectural center point of Prague Castle, back and forth between the two institutions. But a Feb. 16 Supreme Court ruling reversed a lower court’s October decision to hand the cathedral keys to the Catholic Church.

Zderčík said he plans to take the issue back to the Czech courts and, as a last resort, would consider going before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. He added that it’s too early to see how the Supreme Court decision will affect the hundreds of other church properties in the Czech Republic for which legal ownership is still unresolved.

The handover of St. Vitus still has to be negotiated, he argues, and technical issues, such as terminating service contracts with companies that maintain the cathedral, need to be addressed.

Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the archbishop of Prague, declined to comment on the dispute and referred all questions to Zderčík. He has, however, blasted one of the Supreme Court judges for his communist past, telling the daily Mladá fronta Dnes, “We are surprised that former communists who had been judges under the totalitarian regime decided upon the case. It is embarrassing.”

Vlk has also publicly rejected the idea of joint church-state administration of St. Vitus while the dispute wends its way through the courts.

Petr Hájek, the spokesman for President Václav Klaus, remains insistent that the recent ruling be followed. He has said the verdict is clear and that he expects to begin talks with Vlk about transferring ownership of the cathedral to the state.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said he thinks the cathedral should belong to the church although he doesn’t want to see the government get involved in the dispute.

Klaus, for his part, has urged a quick settlement of the dispute, but, at the same time, warned last week against “a categorically formulated demand for the physical return of church property.” That, he said, would cause the state to stop funding churches, stop recognizing church marriages and exclude church schools from the education network.

Part of the problem is the cathedral’s location, in the Third Courtyard of Prague Castle, according to Roman Zaoral, a professor of political science and history at Charles University.

“I think it would not be too politicized if the cathedral stood somewhere else,” he said. “But relationships of this kind between the state and church were always like that in the Czech Republic. Even in the 11th century, King Vratislav left Prague Castle and moved to Vyšehrad because of his disagreements with the bishop.”

Meanwhile, Vlk’s time championing the return of St. Vitus is likely coming to an end this year. In May he turns 75, the age at which Catholic law requires him to retire as archbishop.

Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com

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