In Vilnius, the Stalin Prisoner Bishop Matulenis is Beatified

The Lithuanian Bishop Theophilus Matulenis, a prisoner of the Stalinist camps, is ranked to the blessed Roman Catholic Church. According to DELFI, the process of Beatification, begun back in 1990, ended on Sunday in Vilnius with a ceremony with the participation of thousands of pilgrims from all over the country.

Archbishop of Kaishadoris Theophilus Matulenis was born in 1873, studied at the St. Petersburg Roman Catholic Seminary and the Academy, was ordained in 1900. In March 1923, Matulynis was arrested in the case of Archbishop, Yana Felix Tseplyak and sentenced by a military tribunal to three years in prison. He was serving a sentence in Sokolnichesky and Lefortovo prisons in Moscow. In 1929, Matulynis was secretly ordained a bishop.

In 1929, he was arrested in Leningrad on charges of "illegal ties with persons who lived abroad and in the leadership of an underground national-chivinistic Latvian school." Matulenis was sentenced to 10 years in camps. In the Solovetsky camp, he performed secret services in the forest. I spent more than a year in a penalty isolate. In September 1933 he was released as part of an exchange for Soviet spies and went to Lithuania.

In 1946, Matulynis was again warmed up and sentenced to 7 years in prison. He served in Siblag and Vladimir Prison. In 1954, he was sent to the house of disabled person under the supervision of state security. Only in May 1956 the clergyman was able to return to Lithuania.

After the release of lived in isolation in Sedyuv, in fact under house arrest. Shortly before his death, he was erected by Pope John XXIII to the rank of archbishop. He died in 1962.

In 1994, the bust of Archbishop Matulenis was installed in the Cathedral of Vilnius.