George Matulaitis Journal

144 only a few soldiers and some Jewish merchants. I arrived in Vilnius about seven o’clock in the evening and stayed with the Dolorist Brothers. 1 Then I called on His Excellency Monsignor Michalkiewicz, 2 the administrator of the diocese. He asked me if I had come to take over the administration of the diocese. At first I did not understand his question, but it became clear from my conversation with His Excellency that in Vilnius rumor had it that I would be appointed administrator of the diocese in place of Monsignor Michalkiewicz. He asked how it could be that the Archbishop of Warsaw had actually told me nothing of this. I said that I knew nothing about it and that I was going to Kaunas to give retreats and then on to Marijampole to found a monastery. On this occasion, Monsignor Michalkiewicz explained to me why he had been forced to suspend the Lithuanian priests who had signed a memorandum delivered to the German authorities. 3 I did not understand very much of what he was talking about, since I had not heard anything of this incident. On the following morning I left for Kaunas. Here I conducted one retreat for seminarians and two for lay people—one in Polish and the other in Lithuanian. The city was practically deserted; the refugees had not yet returned. However, there were German soldiers everywhere and all the signs were in German. From His Excellency Bishop Karevi ius I learned that the German government primarily favored Canon Ol auskas 4 as a candidate for Bishop of 1 A Polish Religious Community for men: Sons of the Sorrowful Mother of God, popularly called the Dolorists. They were founded in Warsaw in 1880 and had a monastery in Vilnius. They conducted a trade school for underprivileged young men. Eventually many of them transferred to the Marians. 2 Kazimierz Michalkiewicz (1865-1940): born in Lithuania of a Lithuanian noble family; studied at the Vilnius Seminary and the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg; ordained in 1888. Worked in various parishes in Belorussia and Latvia; spoke Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian. When Bishop Von Ropp was exiled, Pius X appointed Michalkiewicz administrator of the diocese of Vilnius and made him monsignor in 1908. He remained Administrator until June 1918 and was also a member of the Vilnius Cathedral Chapter. He now considered himself a Polish patriot. 3 In retaliation to a memorandum sent to the German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg on May 24, 1917, and signed by a number of prominent Poles, including Msgr. Michalkiewicz himself, a countermemorandum was sent by a group of Lithuanians on July 10, 1917. Among the signitaries were five priests, four from the diocese of Vilnius. Since they were under his jurisdiction, Msgr. Michalkiewicz relieved them of their duties and suspended them for one month as a disciplinary measure. One of these suspended priests was Juozapan Kukta, a close friend of Matulaitis. There was quite a furor in Vilnius over all this because only the Lithuanian priests were disciplined, not the five Polish priests who had signed the Polish memorandum. 4 Konstantinas Ol auskas (1887-1933): had been exiled from Vilnius and was now working in Kaunas. He was active in the field of education and in social and charitable organizations. His candidacy was favored by the Lithuanian Council and by the Germans. He was unacceptable to the Vatican because of his militant stance.