An Interview with Fr. Vytautas Sadauskas

Fr. Vytautas Sadauskas has taught theology for almost three decades at Vilnius Jesuit High School, whose historic complex lies within the maze of alleyways forming the Old Town quarter of the Lithuanian capital. Born in 1966, Fr. Vytautas spent his formative years in then-Soviet Lithuania, where the Communist authorities’ control over Catholic life was considerably tighter than in neighboring Poland. Meeting Fr. Vytautas in August 2022 at St. Casimir’s Church in central Vilnius, the editor of the East-West Church Report learned about his path to the priesthood and the Society of Jesus [Jesuits] despite Soviet roadblocks, as well as his role in restoring Catholic education in Lithuania after 1991. The interview took place in English.

Was your family practicing Catholic? 

Yes—particularly my grandparents, who took care of my First Communion. But my parents were also religious people. My father usually attended Mass early on Sunday mornings at St. Nicholas, a small church near here. He was professor of economics at Vilnius University. When I entered seminary, he was pressured so much that he had to leave his job— having a son in seminary was a bad example. 

What made you want to become a priest? 

During the summers when I was growing up, my parents brought me to see my uncle, who was a forest ranger near the border with Poland. In the Soviet period the most active priests were usually sent away to small village parishes in this corner of Lithuania. So there I was able to meet very good priests with whom my uncle was in contact, especially Fr.—now Cardinal— Sigitas Tamkevičius…

…The founder of the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. 

Exactly. At that time [1975-83] he was parish priest in a very small town called Kybartai. My uncle and I spent time nearby, so we visited him and other local priests. I became inspired by this forest area and began to read the Chronicle as a teenager. This was a very important part of my formation and my decision to become a priest. I imagined myself doing the brave activities of those involved in the Chronicle, even spending the rest of my life in prison somewhere in Siberia! 

I was inspired by the bravery of those parish priests who were courageously speaking the truth; saying what was happening in Lithuania at that time. I remember one sermon preached by Fr. Tamkevičius that was published in the Chronicle. He delivered it in a small village, at a service to commemorate three priests who had been murdered by the KGB. He bravely described the circumstances of their deaths and what the KGB had done to them. I was so inspired that I copied this sermon from the Chronicle. 

When I entered Kaunas Seminary in 1986 things were still quite tough. We had to pass through KGB interrogation, but those brave priests instructed us in how we should behave: what we should say and what we should not say. I followed their instructions, and my application was accepted. 

What sort of things would have been problematic if you had mentioned them to the KGB? 

That I listened to Vatican Radio or Voice of America, for example. My father listened to BBC World Service, Voice  of America, and also Vatican Radio almost every evening— the lasting image I have of him is straining to listen to the radio despite a great deal of noisy interference. So I was instructed to deny that I listened to those types of radio stations. Of course, I was also instructed not to sign anything—to appear naïve, to say that I do not know anything, that my health is not good and so I wish to enter seminary—to give the impression that I am just some poor guy whose only option in life is to be a priest. 

In Soviet Lithuania there was no formal Catholic education except at the seminary in Kaunas. Were parishes nevertheless able to organize Sunday schools? 

Some brave priests took care of those children who wanted to take their First Communion. Fr. [Juozas] Zdebskis, for example, was imprisoned twice because of such catechism—he often featured in the Chronicle. He was killed in 1986, in a car accident staged by the KGB. But all activities were limited to the sacristy, I would say—nothing went on outside the walls of the church building. 

Did the Soviet authorities permit any Catholic religious orders in Lithuania? 

No. While I was in seminary I knew nothing about the Jesuits, because they and other religious orders were underground at that time. But I suspected that some of my friends could be Jesuits, and after a few years I discovered that this was indeed the case. In those conditions there was no normal novitiate [period of training prior to taking vows] as we have now. A novice would simply work at a parish church and visit our provincial [spiritual adviser]—outwardly a parish priest—every few months for counsel. Such calls could not be made during daylight hours, as somebody might notice and inform the KGB. We also had reason to suspect that some of the seminarians were collaborating with the KGB, so we had to be careful.

Your own novitiate came later on. 

Yes, by the end of my seminary years the Soviet Union was collapsing and everything was in chaos. I was ordained in 1991, and I joined the Jesuit order, to which my friends belonged. Initially, the underground arrangements for the novitiate continued: After ordination I worked in parishes for two years while sometimes meeting with our provincial, Fr. [later Bishop] Jonas Boruta. He had been one of the publishers of the Chronicle and was also famous for his great intellect—he held a doctorate in atomic physics. Fr. Jonas then decided to send all of us who had recently joined the Society of Jesus to different European countries to complete a regular novitiate—that is, normal studies. First I spent a year in Birmingham, England. Then I went to the USA for a couple of years to do my licentiate in theology—at Weston School of Theology, which is now part of Boston College.

By that time it was again possible to live in a religious community in Lithuania. 

Yes, we could organize ourselves. In the early 1990s a lot of activities were going on—we could barely embrace all the possibilities! The churches were crowded, there were many baptisms and weddings, and all schools were open to religious education. Pope John Paul II visited Lithuania in 1993, just before I left for England. People were full of inspiration! This church—St. Casimir’s—was given back to us. We started to do reconstruction work and re-founded our Vilnius Jesuit High School in 1995.

There was a long history of Jesuit education in Lithuania prior to the suppression of the order in 1773, I understand. 

Yes, we trace the beginning of our school to the Jesuit Collegium in Vilnius. The Collegium was established in 1570 and later became Vilnius University, which is the oldest university in the Baltic States. The high school functioned again between the two world wars, when it was run by Polish Jesuits—Vilnius being controlled by Poland for most of that period. Then, under Soviet occupation, it became a state school. 

Has the expansion of the current school coincided with a revival of the Catholic Church in Lithuania? 

The peak was when the Soviet system collapsed—at that time everyone was interested in the Church. But little by little people discovered that it was not the ideal institution they had imagined. We have not had the same scandals as in the Western Church, so the situation now is not so challenging, but there is not as much interest as a couple of decades ago. However, we do have many people wanting to enter our school—around 350 applicants a year for only 100 places. 

How many pupils attend overall, and how varied are their backgrounds? 

We have 800 pupils in total, from various backgrounds. Almost all are Catholic—the intake reflects our society—but we are open to non-Catholics. For example, we currently have several Ukrainians studying here who are refugees from Kyiv and Kherson. They are Orthodox. 

Does the Catholic Church fund the school? 

No, but it does receive state funding. This covers salaries and some money for the pupils. In addition, parents pay fees depending upon their level of income. If they are unable to pay we will usually make an exception. We also support large families—we have some very big families here, and we try to provide some credit for this. In my brother’s family, for example, there are six children, and the five who are of school age are all pupils at the school.

Is theology taught as a separate subject in the traditional manner, or within other subjects and the wider life of the school? 

It actually depends upon the teacher. I and one other Jesuit are the only clergy working at the school—most of the teachers are lay people. 

Besides formal classes we have a place 26 kilometers [16 miles] outside Vilnius where pupils go for camp and retreat programs—a beautiful big house by a lake. Every group of pupils goes there once a year with a team of teachers and older students. They spend several days there, attend Mass, and are engaged in religious and many other activities. Social work is also part of our pupils’ formation—they co-ordinate this with Caritas [Catholic charitable services] and the local Sisters of Mother Teresa.

 What is your own approach to teaching theology?

I usually have older students in my religion classes—11th and 12th graders. With the 11th graders I cover the Church and Western civilization—we go through relevant general history and spiritual traditions. With the 12th graders I examine faith and culture. I take contemporary figures, such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, and we look at how their faith or religious values are reflected in their activities. We cover 30 topics in all. I also contact experts in particular topic areas and ask them to present their thoughts, which we then discuss. Or, for example, we might watch a YouTube video of someone like Alister McGrath, the expert on faith and science at Oxford University. We listen to the ideas he expresses, and then the pupils discuss whether or not they agree with him. That is how I present the thinking of the Church on some of these hot topics—I take one person who is an authority in that area, and I ask the pupils to read or listen to them. Whether they agree or not does not matter. 

Do the older pupils in these classes tend to have positive or negative opinions of the Church? 

It varies, actually—it depends upon their background. Some have had bad experiences in their family or parish, or received negative information from mainstream or social media, where positions on many topics—especially moral questions—are opposed to the Church. 

Did you formulate this approach during your many years of teaching? 

Yes, I discovered that this method is the best way. My philosophy towards these hot topics is that, if you want to make sure your beliefs are true, you need to encounter a different opinion. Then you can check whether your conviction is a true one or whether you have to change something because the other arguments are stronger than yours. You have to listen to other ideas in order to make sure that your own belief is correct—there is no other way.

The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania

Lithuania’s Seimas [parliament] declared 2022 the year of the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania: a journal produced clandestinely despite Soviet persecution from March 1972 to March 1989. To commemorate the publication’s 50th anniversary, a special exhibition—Perskaitęs duok kitam [Lithuanian: Pass on to others after reading]—lined an external façade of Vilnius’ Catholic cathedral and filled a gallery within its bell tower during 2022. The cathedral site holds particular resonance for Lithuanians as starting point for the two-million-strong human chain protesting against Soviet rule that spanned all three Baltic states on 23 August 1989. Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence from the USSR on 11 March 1990. The Chronicle documented thousands of religious freedom and other human-rights abuses in Soviet Lithuania. According to current Archbishop of Vilnius Gintaras Grušas, the publication developed from an appeal by a group of young Lithuanian Catholic priests to the authorities for an increase in the annual intake of students to the last remaining Catholic seminary in Lithuania, in the city of Kaunas. By keeping the number lower than the annual mortality rate among older priests, the Soviet government had sought the Church’s gradual demise. [See “Faith and Freedom: A Lithuanian Perspective,” Nanovic Institute, Notre Dame, 4 May 2022, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=guSS2Qikono, from approximately 12.00.].

Led by Fr. Sigitas Tamkevičius [now Cardinal, b. 1938], the work of the Chronicle was supported by dozens of priests, nuns, and laypeople using interpersonal channels; coworkers were often unaware of others’ identities in order not to compromise the publication. Issues of the Chronicle were also smuggled abroad, where Lithuanian émigré and foreignlanguage media disseminated their content. As the 2022 exhibition in Vilnius recalled, the publishers “took maximum effort to remain undetected—they worked (or changed their working place) in the dark, changed the font of their writings, never wrote by hand, hid in the houses of people whom they could trust where they would end up staying for weeks until the new publication would be finished.” The Soviet KGB bugged and searched the homes of participants, and some involved were arrested, tortured, and/or imprisoned. The 2022 exhibition also noted that 23 of those producing and circulating the Chronicle were jailed, while 63 received “preventative punishments.” In 1983 Fr. Tamkevičius received a 10-year sentence for “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation.” Following five years in labor camps in Soviet Russia, he was exiled to Siberia in 1988, before being released later that year due to perestroika liberalization measures. During Fr. Tamkevičius’ imprisonment, the Chronicle was edited by Fr. [later Bishop] Jonas Boruta, who died on 19 December 2022.

Lojoteka Library and Media Center

Connected to Vilnius Jesuit High School by a subterranean corridor and opened in 2020, Lojoteka is a light-filled library and cultural center housing exhibition and lecture space, recording and film studios. There, librarian Lilijiana Marcinkevičiūtė showed the editor of the EastWest Church Report some of the 50,000 books she and a colleague are currently cataloguing. Many are devoted to theology or church history and were donated to the local Jesuit community by Lithuanian émigrés in the United States—particularly the Chicago area—in the wake of the re-establishment of Lithuanian independence in 1991: “A quite large and exceptional collection of Lithuanian books printed abroad by people who fled the Soviet regime and continued to write and publish.” Without suitable premises, Marcinkevičiūtė further explained, these volumes were previously housed at the Jesuits’ nearby monastery and remained inaccessible. 

Lojoteka’s now consolidated collection contains some rare items that will remain on site, including theological and devotional texts from the 18th century onwards and writings from the 1918-40 period of Lithuanian independence, according to Marcinkevičiūtė: “The Soviets were after those books and tried to burn them whenever they found them, so people hid them.” The library also preserves items of samizdat [Russian: selfpublished] literature clandestinely produced during the Soviet period, such as copies of the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. Lojoteka offers study resources to high school pupils. Alongside desks and lounging corners are Lithuanian- and foreign-language volumes on literature, mathematics, history, geography, and art. A small selection of Ukrainianlanguage children’s books greets recent refugees from Ukraine. As its holdings were only recently gathered on site, Lojoteka is not yet a lending library. “We are very much at the beginning—I am still in the process of finding out what we have,” Marcinkevičiūtė told the East-West Church Report. “It’s like a detective story!” In due course, however, “the idea is to open up this big fund of books to the public.” Lojoteka is currently open to visitors outside school hours.