Praying for Freedom: Catholic Underground Resistance in Soviet Lithuania

Facilitator: Matt Nelson

Lithuania, a small, Catholic nation in the Baltic region, has a long history of struggling for independence from greater nation powers. However, never was that struggle greater than during the period of Soviet control over the nation from 1944—1990. At the beginning of Soviet control, Lithuanians attempted to use guerrilla warfare against Soviet power, but were unsuccessful, and they soon switched over to passive resistance instead. An underground journal known as the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania emerged in the 1970’s as a powerful force of this passive resistance in Lithuania. The journal’s original mission was to call for greater religious freedom for Soviet Lithuania, but the journal later grew to encompass a greater mission of liberating Lithuania. This project analyzes the shifting messages of this important journal, and its role in the greater movement for Lithuanian freedom. In reading the text of the Chronicle and by comparing it to the analysis of Lithuanian and Soviet scholars, it is clear that the Chronicle played a pivotal role in the Lithuanian national movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s. The journal unified religious and non-religious Lithuanians in resistance against Soviet power, and kept the flame of resistance alive in a period when active resistance was dangerous and nearly impossible. Though the Chronicle was not explicitly involved in the liberation of Lithuania from the Soviet Union in 1990, it played a large role in ensuring the survival of dissent and resistance in the nation.