[1]
Issue 14 of LCC Chronicle (the “Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church”) [1] reports that the rector of the church in Deleka settlement, a district of western Belorussia with a significant Lithuanian population, was permitted in June 1974 to celebrate a First Communion.
One Sunday thousands of believers began to arrive at the church with their children.
The rector was summoned to the village soviet and detained there. After waiting for three hours, the crowd moved towards the village soviet building. After a sharp exchange of words with the authorities the rector was released.
*
[2]
On 17 June 1974, building engineer Mindaugus Tamonis was forcibly incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital.
There he was subjected to 18 insulin injections. As a result Tamonis suffers from chronic insomnia, his weight has increased by 17 kilograms, and his sight has been greatly weakened. Three months later, in September 1974, he was released.
(Earlier Tamonis refused to take part in restoring a monument to the Soviet army. He called instead for a monument to be erected in Lithuania to the victims of Stalinism.)
*
[3]
On 28 June 1974 the parish priest of Stakliskis, J. Kazlauskas, was fined 50 roubles for teaching the catechism to children.
*
[4]
Arrested on 18 December 1973, the priest Vladimir Prokopiv was released from Lvov Prison in July 1974 (CCE 32.10). He returned to Vilnius.
*
[5]
On 12 July 1974 Petras Adomonis, the parish priest of Kriaunos, was fined 50 roubles for teaching the catechism to children. Next time, he was warned, he could be sentenced to three years in a labour camp.
*
[6]
Forty-six priests of Kaisiadoris diocese appealed on 30 July 1974 to the Commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs of the Lithuanian Council of Ministers. Let Bishop Vincentas Sladkevičius, they asked, fulfil his pastoral duties in Kaisiadoris diocese.
On 5 August K. Tumenas, the Commissioner, summoned one of the signatories of the appeal, I. Pilkas, parish priest of Daugiai, to come for a chat. The priests’ request could not be satisfied, Tumenas told Pilkas, and in any event such demonstrations were extremely inadvisable and quite useless.
*
[7]
On 27 August 1974, Vilnius KGB officials carried out a search at the home of Bronislava Kibickaite. Nothing was confiscated. As they departed they threatened
“If the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church mentions this search, we’ll be talking to you in a different way.”
*
[8]
In Kaunas schoolteacher Andrius Druckus was banned from teaching.
After an unsuccessful attempt to secure his “dismissal at the insistence of the collective”, Druckus was put in charge of the accounts department. This was all because he had accepted from his pupils a wooden statue of the Sorrowing Christ (Rupintojelis) and put it in the school museum.
The Lithuanian Republican teachers’ union acknowledged that the dismissal was unlawful, but Druckus was not restored to a teaching post.
*
[9]
On 7 September 1974 Rakh, an ethnic German resident in Volgograd (South Russia; 1979 pop. 928,692), was detained in the small Lithuanian town of Siluva.
He was searched at the police station, where various religious books in German and a prayer book were confiscated. Rakh is the father of 13 children.
*
Statements by Priests (10-14)
[10]
A statement, dated 20 June 1974, by Father I. Babonas, acting vicar of the Church of SS. Peter and Paul (Siauliai), and of Aukstielskai Church, in summary:
On 30 May I. Babonas was called to the Aukstielskai Old People’s Home to celebrate Holy Communion. Vladas Kacinskas, the director of the home, tried to interfere with the celebration of the mass, and afterwards detained Babonas and A. Vanagas, a priest who was accompanying him.
In the administrative office of the old people’s home Berzinis, the deputy chairman of the district soviet executive committee, KGB official Urbonavicius and two other KGB officials who did not give their names, all talked to them. The talk came to an end at 2.00 am with an order to attend the Siauliai City [2] soviet executive committee on 4 June.
*
On 4 June Babonas was received at the Siauliai executive committee by Berzinis.
The conversation took place in the presence of a State Security official. The same accusations were repeated (breaking existing laws) and the same demands were made, to end anti-State activities.
I. Babonas concludes his statement with these words:
“I was reprimanded on the grounds that my presence in the old people’s home had offended people because many of the residents were unbelievers.
“When I said that if attention had to be paid to the wishes of unbelievers, surely the believers were also human and merited the same attention, the KGB officials said nothing. Probably in their opinion a believer is not really human.”
*
[11]
A statement, in summary by Father K. Zemenas, dated 22 June 1974:
On 19 June K. Zemenas was summoned for a talk by Mrs A. Gudukiene, chairman of the Ignalina district soviet executive committee. Gudukiene accused Zemenas of inviting other priests for church festivals without obtaining the consent of the district authorities. Zemenas asked her to show him the law which forbade such activities.
In reply Gudukiene said that the Soviet authorities issue various regulations which are not for general distribution. In addition, as Gudukiene put it, it is not the custom in the Soviet Union to publish laws concerning the Church. Zemenas objected: according to the Constitution all laws must be published — an unpublished law cannot have any force.
K. Zemenas writes:
“Ask the honourable Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs to explain whether the demands made by the Ignalina district authorities are legal. If such a law exists, then by whom, when and where was it published.”
*
[12]
LCC Chronicle No. 12 reports that at the beginning of September 1974 a letter addressed to Bishop Juozapas Matulaitis-Labukas and signed “a group of priests from Vilkaviskis Diocese” became public.
The authors of the letter (whom the LCC Chronicle labels ‘anonymous’) condemn ‘reactionary’ priests who oppose the Soviet regime and collaborate in publishing the LCC Chronicle, as well as ‘underground priests’, i.e., priests ordained without the knowledge of the authorities. The anonymous letter urges believers to show unity and loyalty to the State authorities, and compares ‘disloyal’ priests to moles “undermining the foundations of the Church of Christ”.
We quote here the last paragraph of this letter:
“Your Grace, you will soon be leaving for the Vatican. We should like to hear you speaking pastoral words of truth from there about our diocese and its priests, because as long as you keep silent the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church speaks on your behalf, although it represents neither the Lithuanian Catholic Church nor Vilkaviskis diocese.”
LCC Chronicles 12 & 14 publish four replies to the ‘anonymous’ author.
Issue 12 contains “An answer from a group of priests of Vilkaviskis diocese” dated 25 September and signed: ‘The priests of Vilkaviskis diocese’. It also reproduces a letter to Bishop Matulaitis-Labukas from priests of Vilnius diocese, in which the following remarks are made:
“The anonymous letter is not without irony in speaking of priests illegally consecrated by ‘someone or other’. Who is this ‘someone or other’?
“Without any doubt, the bishops. But this disrespectful attitude to the bishops reveals the non-ecclesiastical thinking of the anonymous writer: his is the speech of a deserter, not a warrior.“
The authors of this reply defend the LCC Chronicle:
“If freedom of religion, especially in regard to children, were not rudely contravened, the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church would never have come into being.
“Can a mother keep silent when her child is being mocked? Can a priest look on with indifference while atheists, who proclaim freedom of conscience, are in fact constantly persecuting the believers, who have ‘equal rights’?”
Issue 14 of the LCC Chronicle publishes two replies from priests of Panevėžys Diocese to the anonymous letter.
*
[13]
LCC Chronicle 13 published an appeal from five priests in defence of Petras Plumpa-PIuiras, Povilas Petronis, Jonas Stasaitis, Virgilijus Jaugelis, Juozas Grazys and Nijole Sadunaite (CCE 34.6 & CCE 34.7 [10]), who are all under arrest.
The letter points out that some of the accused, in contravention of the existing law, have been in custody for 11 months.
*
[14]
A statement of 14 November 1974 by Father V. Cerniauskas, who lives in Melagenai (Ignalina district).
According to Cerniauskas the church in Melagenai needs speedy, thorough renovation. The local construction department refuses to renovate the church, however, and the deputy chairman of Ignalina soviet executive committee, I. Vaitonis, has been persecuting workers who want to help restore the building. The church still has no electricity or water.
In mid-July 1974, the church was burgled.
Criminals broke a window, desecrated the sanctuary and took away “about 600 communion wafers”. When Police Lieutenant Rimiskis came to Melagenai, he did not carry out an investigation: the church had suffered only insignificant material damage, he asserted.
Father Cerniauskas’s statement ends as follows:
“All the statements which we have sent to high authorities in Moscow and Vilnius have been returned for investigation to the local district and even village authorities.
“Why do the highest governmental institutions exist, if they pass responsibility for the fate of believers to lower officials in district executive committees and village soviets, the local atheists?”
======================================
NOTES
- Known in Lithuania as “Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika” or “LKB kronika”.
↩︎ - The population of Siauliai in 1970 was 92,800. It was and remains one of Lithuania’s largest population centres after Vilnius and Kaunas.
↩︎
============================
A Chronicle of Current Events 