Dominik Duka

Duka was born on 26 April 1943 in Hradec Králové in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now in the Czech Republic). His father was an army officer who fought for the allied forces in World War II, based at RAF Cosford, who was later imprisoned in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. Duka graduated from Tyl Grammar School in Hradec Králové in 1960 and worked in a factory and as an apprentice locksmith before entering military service from 1962 to 1964.

On 6 January 1969, he made his temporary profession as a member of the Dominicans and on 22 June 1970 he was ordained a priest by Cardinal Štěpán Trochta, Bishop of Litoměřice. For five years, he worked in parishes of the Archdiocese of Prague and, on 7 January 1972, he made his solemn profession as a Dominican.

In 1975, the Communist government of Czechoslovakia revoked Duka's authorization to work as a priest. From then until the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Duka worked as a designer at the Škoda factory in Plzeň. At the same time he continued to work secretly as a Dominican and was elected Vicar Provincial, serving from 1975 until 1987. From 1976 to 1981, he served as a master of the clergy. In 1979, he obtained a licentiate in theology at the Theological Faculty of St. John the Baptist in Warsaw, Poland.

As a result of his activities with the Dominicans and his involvement in the publication of unauthorised samizdat literature, he was imprisoned in Bory Prison in Plzeň from 1981 to 1982, where his fellow prisoners included future Czech President Václav Havel. While in prison, Duka conducted a clandestine mass for other prisoners disguised as a chess club. From 1986 to 1998, he was Prior Provincial of the Dominicans in Bohemia and Moravia. From 1990 to 1998, he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Theology at Palacký University in Olomouc, teaching Introduction to Sacred Scripture and biblical anthropology.

Duka was elected to a three-year term as president of the Conference of Major Superiors of the Czech Republic in 1989. From 1992 to 1996, he was vice president of the Union of European Conferences of Major Superiors.

On 18 September 2025, Duka celebrated a Requiem Mass for murdered American political activist Charlie Kirk at the Church of Our Lady before Týn. The Mass was attended by hundreds of worshippers, including politicians, while dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of the church to hold banners describing Kirk as "fascist, racist and sexist". Catholic historian Jaroslav Šebek criticized Duka for celebrating a Mass with a "political dimension".

Duka died on 4 November 2025 at the age of 82, a day after being hospitalised at the Central Military Hospital in Prague where he had undergone surgery several weeks earlier.