One of the greatest Czech thinkers, philosophers and writers was born on 28 March 1592 in Moravia. He studied theology and was a priest, later the last bishop of the Unity of Brethren. After the defeat of the Bohemian Estates at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, he became an exile and began his pilgrimage through Europe. 

After a stay in Poland and Sweden, he came to Prešov in 1650 and then to Blatný Potok at the invitation of Prince Rákoci. In 1654 he visited Prešov again and was one of the candidates for the post of rector of the town school, but the town council chose another candidate. Comenius went again to Poland and from there to Holland, where he spent the last years of his life. He died on 15 November 1670 in Amsterdam.

During his lifetime, Komenský gained a reputation as an author of pedagogical writings in the field of educational theory and didactics. His ideal was pansofia, i.e. the universal science of the system of all knowledge. Komenský's works that are still recognized today include The Gate of Languages Opened, The World in Pictures, The Great Didactic, and The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart. Many of his ideas are timeless, and because of them he is considered not only the founder of modern pedagogy, but also, and rightly, a teacher of nations.

During his visit to Prešov, Komenský stayed in the house of Ondrej Klobušický, later converted into a palace, today the seat of the Regional Court. Komenský's stay in Prešov is commemorated by a commemorative plaque on the facade of the Evangelical College in the city centre.

Source: Regional Library P. O. Hviezdoslav in Prešov; Micro-project.
Photo source: By Jürgen Ovens - http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/SK-A-2161, Free work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34250301

He was born on 1 August 1905 in Trstena, Orava, where he graduated from the gymnasium. After graduation he became a monk of the Franciscan Order and worked in monasteries in Kremnica, Hlohovec, Malacky and Žilina. He studied Catholic theology and became a priest. Subsequently, he worked as a secondary school teacher of religion in several towns, including an evangelical college in Prešov in the second half of the 1930s. After the outbreak of World War II, he volunteered as a field curator on the Eastern Front. 

Returning from the front in the autumn of 1944, he spent five months in the Franciscan monastery in Nižná Šebastová near Prešov. After the war he emigrated, first to Rome and from there to Argentina, where from 1947 he was a priest of the Slovak emigrants in Buenos Aires and edited the magazine Slovenské zvesti (Slovak Tidings). From 1965 he lived in a monastery in Pittsburgh, USA, where he was the editor of the Letters of St. Francis, but also an official of the World Congress of Slovaks. In 1969 he visited Slovakia with the intention of staying, but eventually returned to the USA. He died in Pittsburgh on April 7, 1986.

Dilong is one of the leading representatives of Slovak Catholic modernism, whose work includes more than one hundred collections of poetry. His life and work were marked by his „forbidden“ love for a woman of Jewish origin, Vali, during the time of anti-Semitism. He entered literature as a co-founder of the magazine Postup. In his first three collections of poetry, Future People, Gloriously on stilts, Breathe lazy! he portrayed the theme of nature and peasant life through a traditional rustic vision. In the collections Helena Wears a Lily and The Young Bridegroom one can identify the influences of Czech poetism. Later, struck by the horrors of war, Dilong resorted in his collections to the themes of childhood and his native Orava, which he saw as a security in times of war. 

His work was of a spiritual meditative character, and his book I, Saint Francis is considered to be its culmination. In exile he published more than 70 collections. A selection of his exiled works was published after 1989 under the title I, Rudolf Dilong, troubadour and bears witness to his bitter plight as an outcast and separated from his homeland. His most recent works include the unfinished prose work Ruža Dagmar. 

There is a street named after him in Prešov.

Source: Regional Library P. O. Hviezdoslav in Prešov; Micro-project.
Photo source: Author Slovak Bookshop, Prague - The Pictures of Slovak Writers Serie, vol. 1 (The Pictures of Slovak Writers Series, Series 1), Free work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10679310

He was born on 17 July 1888 in Ruske Pekľany in the family of a Greek-Catholic priest Stefan Gojdič and his wife Anne Gerbery. He studied theology in Prešov and Budapest. In 1911 he was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Prešov. Subsequently, he worked in Cigeľka and Prešov. On July 20, 1922, he entered the Basilian monastery on Černeč Mountain near Mukačevo, where he took the monastic name „Pavel“.

In 1926 he was appointed apostolic administrator of the Prešov eparchy. He was consecrated bishop on 25 March 1927 in the Basilica of St. Clement in Rome by Bishop Dionýz Nyáradi of Križevac, who had been the Apostolic Administrator of Prešov until then. On 8 August 1940, he was enthroned in Prešov as the resident bishop of Prešov, and on 15 January 1946, his jurisdiction over the Greek Catholics in the whole of Czechoslovakia was confirmed.

When after 1948 the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia undertook to abolish the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia, following the example of the USSR, on April 28, 1950, during the anti-church action called the „Prešov Sobor“, vladyka Gojdič was arrested and interned, and at the same time the Greek Catholic Church was administratively abolished as well. In a fabricated trial, Gojdič was sentenced to life imprisonment along with Bishops Vojtaššák and Buzalek for treason. 

He died as a result of torture and ill-treatment in Leopold Prison on 17 July 1960, on his 72nd birthday. He was buried in the prison cemetery and his grave was marked only with the number 681.

On 29 October 1968, his remains were exhumed and taken to Prešov and placed in the Chapel of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Since 1990 they have been kept in a sarcophagus in the chapel of the Greek Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Prešov. On 4 November 2001, Paul Petro Gojdič was beatified by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. On the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the establishment of independent Slovakia, Bishop Pavol Petro Gojdič was awarded the Pribina Cross of the First Class in memoriam by the Government of the Slovak Republic.

Source: https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavol_Petro_Gojdič
Photo source: Author Unknown - Erzeparchie Prestov - www.grkatpo.sk/historia_biskupi, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8551906

Jozef Gaganec was born on 25 March 1793 in the village of Vyšný Tvarožec (today's district of Bardejov) as the second of ten children in the family of a church cantor. He graduated from primary school in Bardejov, from where he continued his studies at grammar schools in Újhely and Levoča. He began his higher education at the academy in Velka Varadin, where he studied philosophy, and completed his theology studies in Trnava. In addition to his native Ruthenian, he also knew Latin, Hungarian and German. 

He was ordained a priest in Velky Varadin on 8 March 1817. He started as a priest in the then village of Ruské Pekľany, later he was a parish priest in Vislav and Hejőkeresztúr and an igumen of Boršod county. Before his ordination he married Anna Kovalicka. In 1837 Jozef Gaganec became the secretary of the Eparch of Prešov, Gregor Tarkovič. In 1835, after Tarkovič's death, he became the capitular vicar of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Presov. In the same year he was widowed and was soon appointed a canon and a member of the episcopal consistory.

Emperor Ferdinand I appointed Joseph Gaganec as bishop and on 25 June 1843 he was consecrated bishop in the imperial chapel in Vienna in the presence of the imperial court. He was consecrated by Bishop Basil Popovich of Mukachevo. 

During his tenure as Eparch of Presov, 36 new churches were built in the eparchy and many churches were rebuilt and restored. During this period he ordained 237 priests (190 for the Prešov diocese, 12 for the Order of St. Basil and 35 for neighbouring eparchies). He addressed his priests frequently and very strongly with admonitions and requests to faithfully preserve and deepen their knowledge of the Eastern Rite.

He was a member of the Slovak Matrix. In 1862, on the initiative of Alexander Duchovič, he founded the Society of St. John the Baptist, aimed at caring for orphans or poor students. The Emperor awarded him the Order of Franz Joseph. In 1868, Pope Pius IX appointed him assistant to the papal throne. He died on December 22, 1875.

Source: https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Gaganec
Photo source: Author Unknown - Erzeparchie Prestov - www.grkatpo.sk/historia_biskupi, Free work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8551718

Alexander Duchnovich was a Ruthenian national revivalist, writer, educator and Greek Catholic priest, who was born in the family of a Greek Catholic priest on 24 April 1803. He graduated from the gymnasium in Uzhhorod. He studied philosophy in Košice and theology in Uzhhorod. In 1830-1834 he was a teacher in Uzhhorod, a parish priest in the villages of Komlóš (today Chmeľová), Chmeľov, Beloveža. He lived in Belovezha for four years and was sent there by Bishop Gregor Tarkovič. It was during this period that Duchnovich decided to become more involved in the dignified life of the Ruthenians. He began to write in his native language (until then he had used Hungarian and Russian). In Belovezh he wrote or compiled his manuscript collection „Privitatae cogitationes“, which contains works of the 1920s and 1930s and gives an overall picture of his artistic output in this period. In Belovezh he performed mainly church duties (parish priest - svyashchenik). In addition, he taught children and adults. He taught children in their native language and also at school he paid attention to learning the basics of agricultural work, especially gardening and fruit growing.

From 1838 to 1844 he was a bishop's notary in Uzhhorod. From 1844 he was a canon in Prešov; he was also a school inspector. He taught Russian and Latin at the Greek-Catholic gymnasium in Presov. In 1847 he was a representative of the Prešov bishopric at the last Hungarian Estates Council. In the same year he published a syllabary entitled Knyzycja chytaľnaja dla načynajuščych. In it, he also published a short story Obraz zhizni (in Slovak, Obraz zhizni zhizni), written by a mere 12-year-old Anatoly Kralitsky. In 1854 he published Liturgicheskii Katechizis, ili objasenie sv. Liturgii i nekotorych cerkovnych obrjadov.

In 1862 he founded (together with other representatives of the Ruthenian national movement) the Obshchestvo svjatoho Ioanna Krestitelja i Predteči (Society of St. John the Baptist, 1862-1874). The Society was active in 1862-1874; it was renewed in 2003. The Society originally supported poor Ruthenian students in their studies. The program of the restored society is the religious, national and cultural development of Rusyns. 

Since 1990, the Alexander Duchnovič Rusyn Theatre in Prešov has been named after him.

Source: https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Duchnovič
Photo source: Author: originally uploaded by DDima in Wikipedia project (English) - http://www.ukrstor.com/ukrstor/dukhn.jpg, Free work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9460987

He came from the family of a blacksmith and a richtár from Bardejov. He studied in Košice, Bratislava and from 1530 at the University of Wittenberg under the guidance of representatives of the German Reformation Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. Especially under their influence, his faith and his cultural and educational level were shaped. 

After years as rector of the school in Eisleben (1534 - 1539), he returned to his hometown where he took over the management of the Latin town school (except for a year's stay in Kežmarok in 1555 - 1556, he was at its head until his death), which under his leadership reached an excellent level. Its excellent reputation is evidenced by the fact that sons of prominent noble families also studied there.

Leonard Stöckel is the author of several textbooks (including the Leges scholae Bartfensis from 1540, the oldest pedagogical written monument in Slovakia, which contained methodological instructions for the organisation of pupils' extra-curricular work, instructions for the acquisition of the curriculum, but also regulations concerning pupils' duties and disciplinary guidelines) and also a school drama written in German The history of von Susanna (The Story of Susan), published in Wittenberg in 1559. In the field of theology, L. Stöckel was one of the main disseminators of the Reformation doctrine in the northern regions of Upper Hungary, and wrote several important works in defence of Protestantism. Of particular importance are his Notes on the General Principles of the Christian Doctrine of Philip Melanchthon (published in Basel in 1560) and the Confessio Pentapolitana, the confession of faith by which the Pentapolitana, an association of five Upper Highland towns, subscribed to Protestantism in 1549.

Leonard Stöckel has a great merit for the elevation of cultural, spiritual and artistic life in Bardejov in the first half of the 16th century.

Source: showbiz.sk
Photo source: By Anatol Svahilec - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=120616683

Jonáš Záborský was a Slovak novelist, playwright, poet, historian, journalist and priest. He was born in 1812 in a peasant family in the village of Záborie (now Martin district). He studied at grammar schools in Kežmarok and Levoča, graduated in theology at the Evangelical Academy in Prešov and later studied at the University of Halle in Germany. From 1834 to 1839 he was a chaplain in Pozdišovce, in 1840 he became a parish priest in Rankovce. After the fire of his rectory in 1842, he converted to the Catholic Church and worked at the German rectory in Košice.

He disagreed with Ľudovít Štúr and his codification of the written Slovak language and considered his national programme unrealistic. In 1848 he was imprisoned for possession of the Requests of the Slovak Nation, and in 1850 he was appointed professor of Greek at the law faculty in Košice. From 1850 to 1853, he also worked as editor of the government-run Slovak Newspaper in Vienna, from where he had to leave due to conflicts with the censorship. In 1853 he became a parish priest in the eastern Slovak village of Župčany, where he worked until his death, adopted a new form of Slovak and devoted himself mainly to literary activities.

Jonáš Záborský's oeuvre is extensive. It includes classicist poetic compositions (Zehry, The Entry of Christ into Paradise), satirical prose (Faustiáda, The Shofranks, On the Seven Dukes of Hungary, Chruňo and Mandragora, Frndolína), didactic humoresques (Two Days in Chujava, Kulifaj), and autobiographical prose (The Panslavist Parson), historical short stories (Buld, Svätopluk's Betrayal, Mazep's Love), a syllabotonic poetic composition (The Death of Janosik), and many dramas (The Last Days of Great Moravia, The Arpáds, The Resistance of the Danube Slavs, Pansláv, Holub, Batory, Striga, the so-called "The Resistance of the Danube Slavs", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia". Lžedimitrijád, etc.). He wrote an extensive historical work History of the Kingdom of Hungary from the beginning to the times of Sigismund. The main themes of his work are historical facts and autobiographical elements.

Source: csfd.sk
Photo source: By Jonáš Záborský - Jonáš Záborský, Free Work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19141314