George Matulaitis Journal

14. Before my departure from Rome, I had suggested to Grum that he reflect on the matter and, after he had completed his doctorate and settled his affairs, that he come and join us 1 so that we could work together. Jurgutis 2 had mentioned this wish of Grum’s. The difficulties that he raised were not real obstacles, in my judgment, because we already have people with similar ones and they, I trust, will be good religious. Grum promised to think and pray about it. I said that he would be able to do much good and work for the greater glory of God if he joined us. I committed the matter to Divine Providence. I shall have to pray for this intention. Grum also pointed out the fact that in joining us he might cause us trouble with the Russian civil authorities. 3 To this I replied that, in my opinion, it would not hurt us at all. Finally, I thought to myself: in such matters we should be more concerned about doing the will of God and serving the Church. 119 1 Grum visited the Marian novitiate in Fribourg in 1913, but he never did join the Marians. 2 Vladas Jurgutis (1885-1966): studied at the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg in 1906-1910 and was one of Matulaitis’s students. He was ordained, but gave up the priesthood to become Minister of Finance in independent Lithuania. 3 Grum had been back in St. Petersburg for a few months in 1911. He had managed to get into a serious conflict with Archbishop Kluczy < ski and was considered suspect by the Russian government. The Department of Public Cult had been keeping him under surveillance. Having violated various regulations and unable to secure a position, he got a foreign passport and left Russia for Rome in November of 1911. After this meeting with Matulaitis in Rome, they probably never met again, although Grum followed Matulaitis’s subsequent career and admired him greatly. Grum himself could not go back to Russia after WWI. He lived in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, unable to commit himself to any community or institution; he died as convent chaplain to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Switzerland in 1945.