January 27 BLESSED GEORGE MATULAITIS-MATULEWICZ, BISHOP RENOVATOR OF THE CONGREGATION Feast Blessed George was born on April 13, 1871, in Lugine, Lithuania, then a part of the Russian Empire. As a child, he lost his parents. In his teens, he contracted tuberculosis of the bone that tormented him all his life. He studied in the Seminary of Kielce and of Warsaw, Poland. George was talented and possessed profundity of soul; thus, he was sent to the Ecclesiastical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was ordained a priest in 1898. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He taught Catholic social doctrine to workers in Warsaw and sociology in St. Petersburg, established an orphanage, and helped the poor. Knowing that the Order of the Marians, founded in Poland in 1670, was dying out, and realizing the indispensable role of religious orders in the life of the Church, he secretly joined it in 1909, and began its adaptation to modern times. He also founded two female religious congregations: the Handmaids of Jesus in the Eucharist and the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Poor. Recognized as an exceptional priest, in 1918, Blessed George was named Bishop of Vilnius. This office brought him much suffering due to ethnic conflicts among the multinational population of the diocese. He resigned in 1925 and went to Rome. Pope Pius XI named George titular archbishop of Aduli and appointed him as Apostolic Visitator to Lithuania, where he restored confidence in the Holy See, organized a new ecclesial province, and prepared the Concordat. He died in Kaunas, Lithuania, on January 27, 1927, in the opinion of sanctity. On June 28, 1987, Pope St. John Paul II declared him Blessed.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==