The funeral of Cardinal Jozef Tomko has taken place in Košice. Three cardinals and 32 bishops came to the last farewell. Among the priests in the procession was the former Archbishop of Trnava, Róbert Bezák. The funeral Mass was led by Cardinal and Archbishop Emeritus Dominik Duka from Prague. The concelebrants were Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop Emeritus of Cracow, and Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom and Budapest and Primate of Hungary. The Mass was held in Latin and Slovak. The state officials, President Zuzana Čaputová, Prime Minister Eduard Heger and ministers Igor Matovič, Roman Mikulec and Milan Krajniak also came to St. Elizabeth’s Cathedral in Košice. According to the organisers, more than five thousand people attended the ceremony. In addition to individual transport, about a hundred buses arrived from all over the region. However, the cathedral was closed to the public at 9:00 am due to full capacity. For those who could not make it to the ceremony, there was a large screen in the square with a live broadcast of the service. The city of Košice informed that it was largest funeral ceremony in its modern history, and the experience of last year's visit of Pope Francis helped them to organise the funeral of Cardinal Tomko. There has never been a funeral of this size in Košice before. The last funeral of a bishop in the cathedral of Košice took place in 1962. It was Bishop Jozef Čársky and he sent the young seminarian Jozef Tomko to study in Rome in 1945, the Press Office of the Slovak Bishops' Conference said.
Source: Daily SME, TASR
