“There was much beautiful, good, heartwarming but also much painful. My wife quotes from the Book of Philippians (1,29). It is a thing that refers to our situation. 'For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for Him.' We understood it this way and we accepted that. And then a word of Hus: 'Woe to me if I was silent.' You are holly obliged as an ordinary mortal and many more times as a priest to say black to the black and white to the white.”
“The regional secretary, namely Evžen Černý, dealt with my departure. But I have to start from the very beginning. My relationship to the Hníks', to the bishop Hník, his wife and sons whom I knew from the times of living in the hall of residence, was very close and cordial and their relationship to me was the same. Even if the family Kopals' lived together with them in the parish house just next to the central council, which meant that we used to meet. So I was given Hník's secret diary by Mrs Hník. He used to call it the Memory Book himself. Daily he put down all events in various length that he experienced on that particular day. Well, and there is a passage where he says: 'Like a flash of lightning there comes a statement that the church secretary Černý requires that we should terminate the employment with Mr and Mrs Spáčil.' The both of us should have gone. Simply bishop Hník was stood absolutely aside such personal matters and he was horrified by that. His diocese secretary Marceluch dealt with such matters for him. However, he treated him like this of course only because he longed for the bishop's chain. Hník mentions there in a few passages: 'My illness is called Marceluch.' He was hit by a heart attack a few times. Only when he heard that he went along the corridor, a terror came over him and he lost his concentration because he knew what a heartless person he was. Mrs Hník said that to me. Marceluch suggested and presented those matters (dismissal of the clergy) to the bishop as a foregone conclusion. The Regional People's Committee accepted that immediately, of course. The date was June 1st, 1961. But after my forethought and a chat with my wife and the presbytery I said I would leave earlier. It was for a simple reason. I tell you quite frankly how it was. People already knew I had to leave Bohuňovice. I started the service and three people in the first pew started crying. Then some other joined them and so did I. And it was every Sunday like this. Honestly it looked like this. So instead of June I left on April 15th, 1961 already.”
“You correctly remembered professor Mánek and bishop Hník because it was I who personally took the bishop's – Hník's diary to professor Mánek. He drew different data from it. I only tell you, to make it complete, that when we got up on August 21st, 1968 and saw the first military vehicle passing by, we did not believe that. But the radio broadcast that we were being occupied. So the first what crossed my mind was that I had the bishop's – Hník's diary and that Marceluch was riding high. Off I went. I wrapped the diary properly in a plastic bag so that nothing could happen to it and I went to a familiar pensioner who we hid the diary behind a beam in his cottage with. Such was my relationship to Marceluch. You could never guess how he would treat you in a particular situation. He was so powerful that he could simply come and say: 'Give it.' And of course he would immediately liquidate it because of course he knew about the diary.”
“An experience that I also remember is that I went through the first and thanks God the last air raid of the American bombers on Přerov. However, it all occurred in such a proximity – we as boys went outside the park Michalov and we romped around there when the alert was put on. The bombs fell on us in such a way, one just three steps in front of me and one of its splinters killed my friend Jirka Chaloupka. This is a token of one of the American bombs, there were really thousands of them there. It was a dreadful experience for a fifteen-year-old boy. The earth was shaking and I jumped into a crater and another was made just in front of me. I would like to say without any pathos what came to my mind that moment. It was obvious that during the bomb swishing we already knew that it was a serious moment in our lives. But when I saw the soil covering us from all sides, crazy hares running over our backs, I remembered my Mummy and Daddy in the first split of a second and then I started praying Our Father.”
“There was a brother minister Langhammer before me in Pěnčín and he was sent somewhere to North Moravia. Well, and I started at a place where they built a little church of St Cyril and Methodius a while ago. It was a lively village, a gently rolling region. Kosíř u Prostějova, if you happen to know, is the highest and the nearest mountain. Then it goes farther to the Drahanská Highlands, I used to manage it all by bike. Ten kilometres to Konice, Stražicko, Lažkov, Přemyslovice. It was the region that I managed and I have got the most beautiful memories from there. You were young, strong and you managed all sorts of things. For example, to have fifteen, twenty or more children for confirmation, it was no problem. In simple terms, we were very close to each other there.”
Mgr. Miroslav Spáčil was born in Brodkek u Přerova on November 5th, 1929. His father Hynek Spáčil was a railman. His mother Božena Spáčilová, neé Přikrylová, looked after her two sons and a small farm. Both sons were strongly influenced especially by their father. He was a bookworm, an organized Social Democrat and a member of the Czechoslovak Church. Miroslav Spáčil finished his primary school attendance in his birthplace. At the beginning of the Protectorate he started at a high school in Přerov, from which he graduated in 1948. During the war he went through a traumatic experience when the Americans bombarded Přerov. After his graduation he was accepted at the Hussite Czechoslovak Protestant Theological Faculty in Prague that turned into a separate Hussite Czechoslovak Theological Faculty in 1950. During his studies he became a scientific auxiliary of F. M. Hník, a professor of Sociology. This meeting became momentous to him. He kept his friendship with the Hník family till the bishop’s death and long after that. He met his wife-to-be and a clergy of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church Dagmar Kopalová at the Faculty. He finished his university studies in 1952. In the same year he was ordained priest by bishop Sedláček in the Hussite congregation in Olomouc. Miroslav Spáčil’s first parish became a newly established congregation of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church Vsetín. However, he worked there just for less than a month. He joined up the Army then. He never served with a weapon during the time. Having finished his military service, just-married Miroslav was sent to Pěnčín and Konice congregations whereas his wife Dagmar worked in Heřmanův Městec till March 1955. Only due to the intervention of bishop Václav Janota she managed to get to her husband to the Olomouc diocese. Then she worked as a clergywoman in the congregation Velká Bystřice for the whole 42 years. The whole family settled down and lived together there after the priest Spáčil had been transferred to Bohuňovice in 1957. However, Miroslav’s active work attracted the attention of the church functionaries. Both Mrs and Mr Spáčil were threatened with forced severance of the labour relation. Whereas the certain state bodies “took mercy” on his pregnant wife Dagmar and she could remain in the church service, priest Spáčil was dismissed without being given an official reason in 1961. An uneasy anabasis of working professions followed. Only in 1967 he was asked to come back to the church service. He was sent to Přerov na Moravě. He got fully engaged in the internal revival of his congregation in 1968. However, with the arrival of the so called normalisation problems came again. He was ranked among the opposition priests and he was fired from the church service again in 1973. He had to work outside church service for the next 22 years. His children were deprived of studies even despite their excellent marks. Miroslav got socially engaged even in the working environment. For example, he organised a unique library in the Ferona factory. He said a service again after sixteen years on the New Year’s Eve 1989. He was sent again to Přerov which he had to leave in 1973. He transferred shortly to Olomouc and his last parish was the congregation Velký Týnec. He died on March 12, 2016.
