The personage of Vatican dignitary, diplomat, and priest Antonino Arata before his arrival in the Baltics in the 1930s

Antonino Arata spent six years in Czechoslovakia (June 1921 – March 1927) and became one of the most important and capable secretaries of the Apostolic nunciature in Prague in the twenty-year interwar period. His talks with politicians, communication with Church dignitaries, and good command of the Czech language contributed to the amelioration of tense Czechoslovak-Vatican relations as well as to strengthening the Czechoslovak population’s confidence in the Catholic Church and the Holy See. His Czechoslovak mission remained in his heart and he, allegedly, always remembered the years spent in Czechoslovakia.