Father Placid dies at age 101

Magyar Kurír reported the sad news of Father Placid’s death at age 101. The Benedictine monk returned to Heavenly Father on 15. January 2016.

Károly Olofsson (Placid Olofsson) was born on 23. December 1916. in Rákosszentmihály (now part of Budapest).
His father, Gusztáv Olofsson was a secondary school teacher in Budapest. Her mother, Jusztina Reihardt was born to a Swabian family. The young Olofsson spent his childhood in Rákosszentmihály. The family moved to the capital in 1926. He completed his secondary school studies in the Benedictine Secondary School. At that time, the scouting spirit of his school heavily influenced him, and since 1931, he had taken part in the organization of the 4th World Scout Jamboree taken place in 1933.

In 1933, he entered the Order of Saint Benedict. He studied Theology in Pannonhalma, and German language at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Then, he became a Hungarian-German-Philosophy teacher in 1939. He took the orders the same year.

He was a chaplain for a year in Győrszentiván. There he was enrolled into camp pastor service. He often defended ordinary soldiers, so in 1942 he was disranked and demobilized. Later, he taught at the Benedictian secondary school of Sopron and Pápa.

In 1945, he was sent to the same secondary school in Budapest where he studied before, at the same time, he had been appointed as the advisor of the Sisters of Social Service. The political Left launched a press campaign against him, so the abbot sent him to Pannonhalma hoping that he would be no longer the political target of the ruling party. There he was arrested in 1945. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union imprisoned him for ten years and interned him to the Gulag in 1946. Soon he found his life goal in there, too.

“I did not teach children, as I planned, but I kept my fellow prisoners’ spirits up. This had been my calling in the lager for ten years. I was the happiest person in the whole Soviet Union because I found the calling of my  life.”

After returning to Hungary in 1955, he was not allowed to work neither as a priest nor as a teacher, so he worked at the chest factory in Budapest, then he was a medical orderly at the National Institute of Rheumatology and Physiotherapy, after that, he was a laundry manager. He retired in 1977.

Since the middle of the 70s, he had been able to pursue priesthood only in secret. In 1993, he received the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. In 2003, he was awarded with the Shield of Faith; in 2010, he was awarded with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. In 2016, he received the Award of the Hungarian Medal of Honour.

According to his wishes, Father Placid will be laid to rest at the Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma.

Photo: MTI

Copy editor: bm

Source: Magyar Kurír