Ludmila Javorová

Ludmila Javorová (born 31 January 1932) is a Czech Roman Catholic woman who worked in the underground church during the time of communist rule in Czechoslovakia and served as a vicar general of a clandestine bishop. She was one of a number of Czech women who were allegedly ordained priests, the religious validity of which has been disputed since.

Life Javorová was born into a Catholic family in Brno in 1932. Although she expressed a wish to become a nun, that was not possible in the time of communism, so she started to work in civilian professions and to support Church activities in her free time.

According to statements made in 1995 and later, the underground bishop Felix Maria Davídek, a friend of Javorová's family, secretly ordained her on 29 December 1970, during the early years of Soviet occupation of the country after the Prague Spring. She had served as his secretary and deputy after his release from prison in 1964 and "gradually took over important tasks in organising the clandestine Church structure ." Davídek named her his vicar general and later ordained her a priest. Around five women were thought to have been ordained in total, with Javorová the only one publicly known.

After the end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Javorová seemingly tried for some time to conceal her status from the public, saying that "the time is not ripe to talk about that". Around 1995, she changed her mind and decided to speak publicly. She helped to prepare a book interview about her experiences, authored by Miriam Therese Winter. Javorová now lives in Brno and remains an active member of the Roman Catholic Church. She is currently a speaker of the Liturgical Commission of her local parish.

Controversy

Although there is thought to be no evidence that an ordination ceremony did or did not take place as claimed, its theological significance has been the subject of controversy.

On one side, Davidek, who had himself spent 14 years in prison as a result of his faith, justified the ordinations based on the pastoral needs of a church suffering harsh persecution, particularly of women tortured in prison who had no contact with male priests but could be ministered to by priests of the same gender. Davídek himself concealed Javorová's ordination from many of his co-workers and demanded written promises of "absolute silence on the matter" from people participating in his secret ordinations. Historians Fiala and Hanuš argue that these ordained women had very few specific sacerdotal tasks in Davídek's group, and conclude from this that their ordinations can therefore be considered as only a "symbolical act and a precedent".

Christian publisher – who had met Javorová – said in an interview that the ordination had been real, but was invalidated by the Vatican after the fall of the communist regime.