Czechosovakian cardinal;  34th Archbishop of Prague, and theologian. His cautious but resolute opposition to the Czechoslovak communist regime helped to bring about its peaceful demise in the 1989 Velvet Revolution.
 
SP - Signed Photograph:  3.25"x5" black and white glossy. Signed on the lower white mount adding his title of office. NOTA BENE: we have two different signed images.
 
Shortly after being consecrated auxiliary bishop of Olomouc (1949), Tomašek was arrested and interned in a labour camp until 1954, when he was released to serve as a parish priest. 
 
Tomasek was unexpectedly sent as a representative to the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), and when the archbishop of Prague, Josef Cardinal Beran, was forbidden to return from Rome, Tomasek was appointed apostolic administrator of Prague. He was secretly elevated to cardinal in 1976 and was publicly proclaimed archbishop of Prague in December 1977. Although he had supported the brief period of liberalization (the Prague Spring) in 1968, he remained conciliatory to the government until Pope John Paul II encouraged him in 1978 to take a more active role in the dissident human-rights movement.