Jesuit, ex-political prisoner František Pevný dies at 100

The Jesuit and former political prisoner František Pevný has died at the age of 100, his former religious order announced on Monday. In 1949, Pevný was sentenced to 14 years in prison for distributing anti-Communist leaflets and did hard labour in Jáchymov. He was released in 1960.

During the so-called Normalization period after the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, he was allowed to work in the Vítkov parish in the Opava region. After the fall of Communism, he returned to the Jesuit order and worked in Kolín and later in Brno, remaining active late into his life.

Pevný will be buried on March 31 in the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Brno, alongside another recently deceased Jesuit, the Charter 77 signatory František Lízna.