Clergy and monks of the Lithuanian Catholic Church persecuted during the German occupation

Abstract

The repression of clergy and monks during the German occupation has not been widely studied. At the beginning of the occupation, the impression was formed that the Church could regain what it had lost during the Soviet occupation, that the new government would not interfere with its activities. However, it later turned out that these were false illusions. Although compared to Poland, the Catholic Church in Lithuania experienced less severe persecution by the German government, the activities of the Church in the Vilnius Archdiocese, nevertheless, became more restricted. It must be stated that the chosen research topic has not yet been examined in sufficient depth. To do this, it is necessary to study the archives of archdiocesan and diocesan curias, monasteries, and the biographies of individual clergy in greater depth. The article emphasizes that the main reasons for the repressions against Lithuanian clergy during the German occupation were not political, but pastoral: sermons, evangelical stance, rescuing Jews, and only then, disobedience to political authority and the system.