Ján Eugen Kočiš

After his graduation of school education, he completed his study as the teacher in the Pedagogical College in Michalovce (1942–1946) and worked in this profession a one year in Malá Tŕňa.

[1] In 1947 he joined the Theological Seminary in Prešov, where he studied until prohibition of the Greek-Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia in 1950 and the beginning of religion persecution.

[1] After ordination he served as a clandestine priest, but officially worked as a baker, excavator driver, worker, until his arrest and imprisonment in 1958 by the Communist Czechoslovak State Security for four years.

Kočiš returned to an active pastoral service as a close cooperator to Ján Hirka.

In January 1993, he was appointed as a vicar for the Greek-Catholics in the Czech Republic with the residence in Prague and with the creation of the Ruthenian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Czech Republic in 1996, he became a Protosyncellus of this ecclesiastical structure.