Lithuania's Catholic Church has gained its first beatified communist-era martyr in the only such ceremony ever conducted in the formerly Soviet-ruled Baltic country.
Preaching at the beatification of Archbishop Teofil Matulionis (1873-1962) on 25 June, Italian Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Saints' Causes, said: "The hostility of the Nazis and communists had no rational justification - it was motivated solely by hatred for Christ's Gospel and the Church".
"But he [Archbishop Matulionis] upheld the faith and never surrendered to enmity, which would have been the worst reaction to this evil - and today, memories of past sufferings should not impede our joy".
He said the sufferings of Matulionis, who was murdered with a lethal injection to stop him attending the 1962-5 Second Vatican Council, had lasted through many years of "cruel dictatorship", but added that many contemporaries, including his own persecutors, had recognised him as a "true man of God".
Speaking to an audience of around 30,000 people in Cathedral Square, Vilnius, on Sunday the cardinal said Christians currently facing martyrdom in the Middle East and elsewhere were still serving, like Matulionis, as "daily teachers of the resurrection".
Born at Kudoriskis, Matulionis was ordained at St Petersburg in 1900 and ran the city's St Catherine church after parish work in neighbouring Latvia. Jailed for three years during the 1923 trial of Archbishop Jan Cieplak, he was secretly made a bishop six years later following his release, but then sent without trial to the White Sea's Solovki Islands labour camp, before being allowed back to Lithuania in a 1933 prisoner exchange.
Appointed Bishop of Kaisiadorys, he was again arrested in 1946 for refusing to collaborate with Lithuania's Soviet occupiers, and despatched to prisons and camps in Orsa, Vladimir and Mordova, only resuming episcopal functions secretly when freed in 1956. He was raised to archbishop by Pope John XXIII in 1962, but refused Soviet permission to attend Vatican II and killed with an injection believed administered by a KGB police nurse following a brutal beating.
Speaking at Sunday's Mass, which was attended by Cardinal Vincent Nichols and bishops from around Europe, President Dalia Grybauskaite described the archbishop's beatification as a "great day for Lithuania and all Lithuanians worldwide", and said she hoped the martyr would now "watch over his homeland".
The president of Lithuania's Bishops Conference told The Tablet the witness of communist-era martyrs had lessons to teach when "lighter forms of persecution" in contemporary Western society still required "daily courage". He added he hoped the cases of other martyrs could be brought forward, despite a lack of funds and expertise, but cautioned that it was now "unrealistic" to expect legal compensation for Soviet-era atrocities.
"We still don't have laws in place for criminal trials - while attempts to prosecute the guilty would require international co-operation", said Archbishop Gintaras Grusas of Vilnius. "This part of the world needs reconciliation for the past, more than revenge or worldly justice. Many people still bear the wounds of what was done to them, and I'm not sure having someone punished would do much to heal them".
Archbishop Matulionis' beatification brings the number of communist-era Catholic martyrs honoured in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union - who include 27 Ukrainians and 38 Albanians - to over 80.
The Catholic church in Russia is seeking the beatification of 16 Soviet-era martyrs, while the Pope is expected to beatify seven martyred Greek Catholic bishops during a 2018 visit to Romania.
PICTURE: Prelates arrive for the beatification of Lithuanian Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis outside Vilnius Cathedral June 25. Archbishop Matulionis became the first Catholic martyr from the country's communist era to be declared blessed
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