Ján Havlík

Ján Havlík (12 February 1928 27 December 1965) was a Slovak Catholic seminarian with the Congregation of the Mission.

Biography

Early life and education Ján Havlík was born on 12 February 1928 in the village of Dubovce in the Skalica District. He was the eldest of four children. His family was poor and very religious. As a child, he was influenced by his aunt Angela, who was a nun of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul.

Havlík started his education at the elementary school in Holíč, where he had to walk 8 kilometers daily from his home village to attend classes. In 1943 he enrolled at the Lazarist missionary school in Banská Bystrica, planning to study at a seminary and become a priest after graduation. Nonetheless, the school was evacuated following the breakout of the Slovak National Uprising and the students were sent home. Nonetheless, even this alternative plan did not go smoothly as the authorities forcibly removed all the novices to a reeducation camp in Kostolná-Záriečie. After that, Havlík was forced into hard manual labor building a dam in Púchov. After the dam was finally completed in August 1950, he moved to a rented apartment in Nitra, found a laborer job while continuing to study at the underground seminary. He was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. He was transported to the work camp Equality in Jáchymov, where he was forced to work at a uranium mine. While working at the mine, he was repeatedly injured and underwent a back surgery. The process was formally initiated on Sunday, 9 June 2013 in Skalica by the Archbishop of Bratislava Stanislav Zvolenský. The diocese phase ended on 24 February 2018. With the consent of the Pope Benedict XVI, Havlík's death was considered martyrdom although he did not die directly of the torture. On 7 July 2024, the remains of Havlík were exhumated for the purpose of creating relics.

Havlík was beatified on Saturday, 31 August at Šaštín-Stráže by the papal legate Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. The ceremony was attended by about 30 bishops, 370 priests and 13,000 faithful.

Havlík's relics are displayed in the Church of Saint Vincent de Paul in the Ružinov borough of Bratislava. A newly constructed chapel of the Blessed Ján Havlík was constructed in the church to hold the relics. 11 vertical columns are installed in the chapel symbolizing 11 years Havlík spent imprisoned for his faith. Litanies to Ján Havlík were published in March 2023 in preparation for the beatification. The writer Daniel Hevier wrote the words of the hymn to Blessed Ján Havlík.