Lo sdoganamento della chiesa cattolica in Lituania, 1941-1944

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Katalikų Bažnyčia; Vokiečių okupacija; Sovietų invazija; Lithuanian Catholic Church; German occupation; Soviet invasion.

ENThe article analyzes the situation of the Catholic Church in Lithuania durring the years of German occupation (June 1941-July 1944). It is illustrated how and in which sectors the high ecclesiastical hierarchies were able to re-establish, during the German occupation, the situation present on the eve of the Soviet occupation of 1940-1941. With the beginning of the German occupation, the bishops tried to recover the juridical status before the Soviet invasion, and they began to reshape ecclesiastical structures and oxygen to their social activities. The German authorities tried to maintain good relations with the Church leaders and to use the social influence of priests for propaganda purposes in the fight against Bolshevism. These are the reasons why they looked with substantial favor at the reactivation of some sectors of activity of the Catholic Church of Lithuania. The restitution of the property confiscated by the Soviets was slow, the attempt was made to limit the activity of the church with directives and instructions and it avoided putting into practice various laws introduced by the Soviet regime in 1940-1941 that the Church considered unacceptable. The bishops considered this policy as an intolerable lack respect for what the Soviet regime did, which they criticized tenaciously defending the interests of the Church. The main form of protest of the bishops were the writings sent to the highest offices in Ostland, which were asked, among other things, not to limit the activity of the Faculty of Theology, to renew the concessions for the: publication of the religious press and the activities of Catholic organizations or to renounce state registers of civil status. However, most of these requests were not met. In the period 1941-1944, the Church leaders managed to achieve only a partial restitution of the status quo ante limited to those areas in which its activity did not take into account the prohibitions imposed by the occupation forces.