The founder and editor of Lietuvos Katalikų Bažnyčios Kronika Rev. Sigitas Tamkevičius SJ in exile in Krivoshein, the Tomsk region. 1988. Vidas Spengla The Church, the Kronika, and the KGB web KATALIKŲ AKADEMIJA Vilnius 2002 UDK 282(474.5)(093) Sp21 Parts I and III written by Vidas Spengla Part II written by Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius and Bishop Jonas Boruta Translated into English by Saulius Girnius Edited by Vidas Spengla The publication of the book was supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania © Algimantas Žilinskas, 2002 ISBN 9986-592-35-6 © Publishing house KATALIKŲ AKADEMIJA INTRODUCTION This book describes events which took place 10-30 years ago in the Church of the small, little known country of Lithuania. This country, which has shared the tradition of Christian faith with Europe for 600 years, lived in difficult conditions of persecution for 50 years in the twentieth century when every day anyone who treasured the faith had to be on guard and willing to fight if he wanted to preserve this faith in his heart. We clearly felt then that the stern words from the first Epistle of the Apostle Peter - “Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” (1 Pt 5, 8-9) - were not frightening rhetoric written in the spirit of old times, but the painful reality of current life. The author of the Holy Scripture addressed these words to the persecuted Christians of the first centuries, but also consoled and showed the way for Christians oppressed by the totalitarian anti-Christian dic­ tatorships of the XX century. Putting it in today’s language, this text urged us to realize that sharing information about the on-going perse­ cutions and challenges of the faith with people of good will from all over the world was a weapon and support for those persecuted and the defenders of the faith. From this understanding the idea for the underground publishing of the Lietuvos Katalikų Bažnyčios Kronika arose in 1972. The Kronika wrote about the difficulties experienced by the believ­ ers not only in Lithuania but also in other Soviet republics, such as Ukraine, Moldavia, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Siberia... Christian broth­ ers and sisters of different nations shared their difficult experiences in defending the faith in the pages of the Kronika. They shared them not only with the persecuted but also with the people of the free world. I think that this sharing was useful and beneficial for all. It was not only such in the past, but can also be useful today. In presenting the longer Lithuanian language version of this book to the public, Archbishop of Kaunas Sigitas Tamkevičius wrote: “I would really like that this book would not only tell the reader about the not so distant past, but also awaken responsibility for today’s and tomorrow’s Church.” I would also like to wish the same to all who will turn the pages of this book. Let the experience of the believers from the small little-known country - 5 Lithuania - help you not only to understand the origin and current mental features of Lithuanians who are knocking on the doors of the European Union but also let it be a support defending the faith and Christian virtues as are the difficulties endured in the times of persecu­ tions in other ages. I believe that today they are necessary and irreplacable everywhere. Bishop Jonas Boruta S] Secretary-General of the Conference of Bishops of Lithuania 16 December 2001, Vilnius PART I THE ORIGIN AND AIMS OF THE LIETUVOS KATALIKŲ BAŽNYČIOS KRONIKA (The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania) 1. SITUATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LITHUANIA IN SOVIET TIMES After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by the USSR and Germany on 23 August 1939, Lithuania was assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence and was occupied on 15 June 1940. The USSR, however, did not want to have an official occupational status, and, thus, organized the farce of elections to the Liaudies Seimas (People’s parlia­ ment) on 14-15 July 1940. During its first session on 21 July ‘the elected’ Seimas declared Soviet rule in Lithuania and decided to ask for Lithuania’s admission into the Soviet Union. On 3 August the delegation of the Seimas brought ‘the sun of Stalin’ to Lithuania from the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Moscow. After registering officially “the voluntary entry of Lithuania into the USSR” on the basis of a juridical farce, the occupants could begin fulfilling more openly and boldly their political, economic, and social goals - to sovietize all spheres of Lithuania’s life as quickly as possible according to the USSR model. The restrictions of the rights and activities of the Church began immediately after the occupation: the decree on separating the Church from state and school was promulgated already on 25 June 1940. Re­ ligious classes in schools were abolished; chaplains were expelled from the army, schools, and prisons; the faculty of the Theology-philosophy Department of the University of Vytautas the Great in Kaunas was abolished; all Catholic institutions of teaching and care were closed; religious press was forbidden; mandatory civil registration of marriages was established. On 5 August all the land belonging to the Church was nationalized and at the end of October also all the buildings. The Con­ cordat with the Holy See was broken off.1 Although the leaders of Lithuania’s Catholic Church tried to find a modus vivendi in the new occupational conditions, the ever growing restrictions on the activities of the Church and its protests against them made it clear that it would be impossible to reconcile the Communist 1 Arūnas Streikus, “Lietuvos Katalikų Bažnyčia 1940-1990,” [The Catholic Church in Lithuania 1940-1990], LKMA metraštis [LKMA Chronicle], XII, pp. 39, 40. 7 authorities and the Church. The Communist authorities were forced to fight against Lithuania’s Catholic Church not only for ideological but also for political reasons: they viewed the Church as the main ideologi­ cal force and leader of the Lithuanian nation not to yield to the occu­ pation and annexation. In order to break the influence of the Church on the population, the repressive authorities, as was usual in the Soviet Union, began working. Already on 2 October 1940 Secretary of the NKVD* of the LSSR Petr Gladkov ordered all the chairmen of district departments to enter all priests into the strategic register, i.e. to begin observation cases against them. During the first occupation (in 1940-1941) the Soviet authorities did not hurry to repress many priests. However, during the year until the beginning of the war between Germany and the USSR in Lithuania (including the Lithuanian part of Vilnius diocese) 39 priests were ar­ rested and imprisoned, and 21 priests tortured to death or killed when the Soviet army was retreating from Lithuania.2 With Germany’s defeat in the war and the return of the Soviet army in 1944 to Lithuania, many inhabitants of Lithuania repatriated to Poland, Germany, and other Western countries because of the threatening terror, war conditions, or forced by the German army. Until 1958 their number was calculated to be 490 thousand.3 Among them were three bishops - Kaunas Archbishop Metropolitan Juozapas Skvireckas, his assistant Bishop Vincentas Brizgys, and the assistant Bishop of Vilkaviškis Vincentas Padolskis - who went to the West and Archbishop Romuald Jalbrzykowski who was deported to Poland by the Soviets (in 1945). About 300 priests withdrew to the West. There were 1,579 priests** in Lithuania in 1940 and 1,232 in 1945. So during the first five years of occupation and war Lithuania lost 347 priests, i.e. around 22 percent. Until the middle of 1947 (until the arrest of Archbishop Mečislovas Reinys) 110 priests repatriated to Poland from the Vilnius archdiocese. Thus even without counting any repressions until 1948 about 460 (29 percent) priests who had worked in 1940 had been lost.4 Although it had lost a great part of the more initiative and active priests, at the beginning of the second Soviet occupation the Catholic * NKVD (Narodnyi komisariat vnutrennich del) - National Commissariat of Internal Affairs. 2 Vytautas S. Vardys, ed. Krikščionybė Lietuvoje [Christianity in Lithuania], Chicago, 1997, p. 375. 3 Arvydas Anušauskas, Lietuvių tautos sovietinis naikinimas 1940-1958 m. [The Soviet Annihilation of the Lithuanian Nation in 1940-1958], Vilnius, 1996, p. 404. ** According to church Elenchus there were 1,339 priests in the provinces of the Lithuanian Church in 1940 and 173 priests in the Lithuanian part of the Vilnius diocese (1939). So there must have been no less than 1,512 priests in 1940. There may have been even 1,579 priests. 8 Church did not lack bishops and priests: except for the Kaunas archdio­ cese, the other 5 dioceses had their own bishops (the Vilnius and Telšiai dioceses even had 2 bishops each) and as mentioned earlier there were 1,232 priests at the beginning of 1945. 4 5 After the return of the Soviet army the immediate tasks of the occupational authorities remained the same as they had been in the years of the first occupation (in 1940-1941): to sovietize all spheres of life and to strengthen its rule. However, at that time the war was still continuing in Germany and this took its toll: the occupational authori­ ties declared a mobilization. The men of Lithuania did not obey the unlawful demands of the occupants: they began to hide and withdrew to the forests.