Mons. Mgr. Jan Baxant

* 1948

  • "When I entered the seminary, here in Litoměřice... We were the first year here in the trinity next to the cathedral, where Father Hladik is now. There were forty of us there. There was one bucket, three cold water taps, no bathing. We went to the baths, every week for half an hour, it was scheduled and we were squeezed on each other. I suffered terribly from the unfreedom there. And considering the way we were brought up at home, that we were free to do anything and make our own decisions, I suddenly felt like I was in a cage. So I used to visit Knödl, Father Knödl. He was an excellent spiritual, also an excellent man, and an excellent priest. So then we agreed that I would leave. And I left in April. So I had exams for the first semester, but I didn't have exams for the second. But as soon as I left and started working as a waiter again in Vary, because I had to do at least something, I still had to think about it and at the end I had to come back. So, it was my sister, my sister Jaruška who helped me, because I was too shy to go to Tomášek, and she went there because she used to go to Mixa, so it went somehow through Mixa .. Mixa married her, there at St. Jan Nepomucký’s church So she went there, and Tomášek said, 'Of course, he can come', and he sent me a card, I mean a postcard, saying, 'Yes, I expect you to come next year. the rector Poul has been informed about it.'"

  • "And there I learned a lot from him. For example, he said to me: 'Do you know why artists, actors in particular, often commit suicide? It's because there's no applause. To be an actor is to have applause, to stand on stage, to bow at the end. As soon as there is no applause, there is no success - their personality degrades and they commit suicide.' So this has helped me a lot, because to be the best in something, to be on top, it tempts one to think that they can afford anything, one can do anything and so on... Be careful with that! Your own success can hurt you."

  • "I was about to turn sixty and I got a call from a nunciature councilor saying that the nuncio needed to talk to me, if it would be possible to have a meeting the next day, somewhere outside the diocese and outside the nunciature. So I said, 'Well, let's meet somewhere in a restaurant for lunch,' because I thought, 'He wants to wish me a happy 60th birthday, doesn't he,' so we went there and we had lunch and he wished me a happy birthday. He gave me a book or something. Well, he finished lunch and he said, 'But, Mr. Vicar General, I have one more thing.' He opened his briefcase and took out a letter, and the nunciature has those really big envelopes. 'Here's another letter, please read it.' And it said: 'I inform you that Benedict XVI. ...has appointed you Bishop of Litoměřice. Please tell the nuncio at the nunciature if you accept this offer.’ That's how I found out. When I read it, I thought, 'This must be a joke or something...' Well, it wasn't a joke. And so there was a moment, after which I said, 'Mr. Nuncio, because I love our Holy Father Benedict and I love you, I accept it.'"

  • "So on August 21st, we were doing, well we had kind of a bar at the airport in Vary, and I was just going to work in the morning, past the church up there to the vantage point for the bus (number eight) that goes to the airport. And I'm thinking, 'What are all these planes doing here? Planes everywhere, flying around...' Well, I couldn't get to the airport because it was all fenced off. So that's actually how I found out, because I wasn't listening to the radio or the TV. I mean, we didn't even have a television. But this is when... I was only (I was only, that was 1968, I was born in 48, I wasn't even twenty yet, I was nineteen, because I turned twenty in October), but this event made me realize the monstrosity of communism. Exactly this event! It didn’t occur to me before. That we were persecuted? We understood that this was the way it was supposed to be, that we had to pass on our testimonies for Jesus our Savior, and that this is how it was, how it is now, and how it always will be. That if the persecution is not there, Christians will perish or become lazy or indifferent. I even say that light persecution suits us Christians. So yes,with this situation, the occupation, I have fully realized what a dirty business this communism is. And my father, when he still had a year to live, he told us, he couldn't see, the diabetes blinded him. So he said, 'Please don't believe them, it's all a big mess.' We said, 'But please, dad, thank God, communism has fallen in here...' - 'No! It’s only communists changing for other communists.’ And he was right."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Litoměřice, 13.02.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:43:04
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Litoměřice, 14.03.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:58:54
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I’m happy to be a Christian

Jan Baxant after the First Holy Communion
Jan Baxant after the First Holy Communion
photo: Contemporary witness's archive

Jan Baxant was born on October 8, 1948 in Karlovy Vary as the fourth of six children of Ambrose and Marie Baxant. The children in the Baxant family were raised with Christian values, the family maintained friendly relations with the priests of the parish, and Jan and his brother were soon serving at the altar. In 1968, he graduated from the Secondary Industrial School of Surveying in Prague and began his theological studies in Litoměřice. After graduating in 1973, he was ordained a priest and in the same year began his priestly ministry in the parishes of the Prague Archdiocese. He interrupted his ministry between 1990 and 1997, when he was appointed vice-rector and later rector of the Archbishop’s Seminary in Prague. Since 2003 he has held the office of Vicar General of the České Budějovice Diocese. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him the twentieth bishop of the Diocese of Litoměřice.