Stories from FIT

First Mass celebrated in a lecture hall at FIT

Although the monks have long since left the compound at Božetěchova, masses are still celebrated in the adjacent Holy Trinity Church. However, in 2005, the former monastery compound of the Faculty of Information Technology also took the opportunity to open its gates to the faithful. Jan Zachoval, a former colleague from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was ordained a priest in Královo Pole and the interest in his First Mass was so huge that all the participants could not fit inside the church. Therefore, about 150 people attended from the modern lecture hall, to which the entire Mass was broadcast thanks to the audiovisual facilities and technicians of FIT.

"What happened has exceeded all expectations. The lecture hall was filled to the last seat. Wheelchair users and mothers with strollers were at the front. To my amazement, the community behaved not as spectators but as living participants in the Mass. They stood up, knelt down, answered and their faces showed both interest and emotion," recalls Jan Maxmilián Honzík, former Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Vice-Dean of FIT.

The priests from the church also learned about what was happening in the lecture hall and, at the end, they came to the lecture hall to give the sacrament of communion. "Unbeknownst to us, this story made an indelible mark in the history of the faculty, for one, because it was unusual, and also because the famous monastery, which served its purpose for about four centuries and then was used by the army for another century before it fell into the hands of higher education institutions, briefly regained the purpose for which Karel IV's brother, Jan Jindřich, had it built," says another of the participants in the event, then Vice-Dean Milan Češka.

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