Justinas Staugaitis (14 November 1866 – 8 July 1943) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic politician and bishop. He was one of the twenty signatories to the Act of Independence of Lithuania and became the first bishop of Telšiai in 1926.
Educated at the Sejny Priest Seminary, Staugaitis was ordained as a priest in 1890. From 1894 to 1905, he served in the Archdiocese of Warsaw. Upon return to Lithuania, he was a pastor in Marijampolė, Lekėčiai, Pakuonis, and (1916–1926). In Marijampolė, he became more involved in the Lithuanian cultural life – he founded and chaired Žiburys Society which established Lithuanian primary schools, participated in the agricultural Žagrė Society, and started contributing to the Lithuania press. He was the editor of the monthly Catholic magazine Vadovas from June 1909 to August 1912. During World War I, he remained in Lithuania and organized aid to war refugees.
In September 1917, Staugaitis was elected to the 20-member Council of Lithuania which adopted the Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918. On that day, he was elected vice-chairman of the council and continued in this position until the council was replaced by the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania in May 1920. Staugaitis, as a member of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party and Farmers' Association, was elected to the Constituent Assembly, the First Seimas, and the Second Seimas where he served as a deputy speaker and speaker of the Seimas from July 1923 to January 1925 and from March to June 1926.
Staugaitis worked to establish the Lithuanian ecclesiastical province and became the first bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Telšiai and administrator of the Territorial Prelature of Klaipėda in April 1926. He established the Telšiai Priest Seminary, built bishop's residence and seminary's building, organized three eucharistic congresses. During the German occupation of Lithuania, Staugaitis pastoral letter which talked about helping those in need and avoiding revenge, but did not openly protest against the Holocaust in Lithuania and avoided getting involved in politics. He had a heart attack in 1939 and his health continued to decline. He died in July 1943 and was buried at Telšiai Cathedral.
Biography Early life and education Staugaitis was born on in in Congress Poland near the Russian–Prussian border. It is believed that the village was founded by his ancestors who migrated from East Prussia in the 17th century. His family were farmers who owned about 40 morgens of land. Staugaitis was the eldest of nine siblings, but four of them died in childhood. His brother was also a politician elected to the Seimas.
His father received illegal Lithuanian publications from priest Martynas Sederevičius. Staugaitis learned to read and write in Lithuanian at home from his parents, but later his parents hired a (a teacher in clandestine Lithuanian schools) who was a dropout of the . The family delayed Staugaitis' official education due to financial difficulties. In 1877, he enrolled at the Russian primary school in Kudirkos Naumiestis located about away. Because of the distance, he rented a room from distant relatives who spoke Polish. Staugaitis learned Polish from them.
In 1882, Staugaitis enrolled at the Marijampolė Gymnasium. At the time, he was already 14 years old, and the school did not admit children older than 12. Therefore, Staugaitis used the birth certificate of his first cousin once removed named Julijonas Staugaitis. At the gymnasium, his classmate was the future bishop Jurgis Matulaitis-Matulevičius. Staugaitis rented a room at a dormitory which was supervised by the future engineer and writer and jurist Antanas Kriščiukaitis. His roommates included the poet Motiejus Gustaitis. His teachers included Petras Kriaučiūnas who promoted the ideas of the Lithuanian National Revival and introduced his students to the first Lithuanian periodical Aušra which was illegal due to the Lithuanian press ban. Staugaitis earned a living by tutoring other students and by becoming a supervisor of a dormitory.
In July 1885, Staugaitis was one of 14 students (out of 46 candidates) admitted to the Sejny Priest Seminary. He did not have sufficient funds for the school, but received a scholarship under the last will of a priest in Keturvalakiai who was a distant relative. In his memoirs, Staugaitis criticized the seminary education as relatively low level, aimed at pastoral work with the congregation and not more academic theological studies. He also noted that the studies were based on old texts which did not equip the clerics with knowledge to combat the spread of socialist or freethought ideas. The seminary did not teach the Lithuanian language. Therefore, students organized a secret club (led by ) to share the banned Lithuanian literature and improve their language skills.
Priesthood Staugaitis was ordained on 24 June 1890 (the Nativity of John the Baptist). In September 1890, he was assigned as a vicar to Alytus which was a poor and neglected parish. He was reassigned to Śniadowo in February 1891. Intense pastoral work and poor living conditions had an impact on his health and he had chest pains. In spring 1893, he was reassigned to Balbieriškis where conditions were better. In November 1894, he read a manifesto about the death of Alexander III of Russia in Lithuanian, not Russian as required. He was questioned by the Tsarist police but avoided further persecution.
With an introduction of a local noble, Staugaitis applied for a position in the Archdiocese of Warsaw hoping that he could continue his education. In April 1895, he was posted as a vicar in Błędów. He was quickly reassigned to Łódź as a vicar and chaplain of a shelter for the elderly, and then to Warsaw as a vicar of the Church of St. Alexander for about three and a half years. He later worked as a chaplain at boys' gymnasiums. At the time, there were about 3,000 Lithuanians in the city, including two brothers of Staugaitis who studied trades with his financial assistance. A group of Lithuanians, including Staugaitis, wanted to establish a Lithuanian charitable society similar to the but it was not approved by the governor.
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, gymnasium students began a strike and the principal suspected that Staugaitis was involved. Therefore, Staugaitis accepted an offer to return to the Diocese of Sejny in August 1905. He was chosen as pastor of the proposed parish in Lekėčiai. While approval for the parish was pending with the Tsarist authorities, Staugaitis was temporarily posted as a vicar and vice-dean of Marijampolė. There he met other Lithuanian activists (Kazys Grinius, Motiejus Gustaitis, Petras Kriaučiūnas) and became involved in the Lithuanian cultural life.
The parish of Lekėčiai was approved in September 1906, exactly 60 years after it was first initiated. Staugaitis initiated the reconstruction of a chapel (built in 1843) into a parish Church of St. Casimir as well as the construction of a house and barn for the pastor. He felt underutilized in Lekėčiai and even considered moving to the United States. He left Lekėčiai in April 1909 to work on publishing Vadovas in Sejny. He returned to pastoral work in August 1912 when he became the pastor of Pakuonis. During World War I, he remained in Pakuonis and published an article in Vadovas urging other priests not to abandon their flock and not to retreat to Russia. In fall 1916, Staugaitis was reassigned to near Kaunas where he continued to serve until his appointment as bishop in 1926.
Activism
Staugaitis became one of the first in Lithuania to implement the principles of Catholic Action and the papal encyclicals Rerum novarum and Graves de communi re in practice. At the end of 1905, Staugaitis established a kindergarten for poor families in Marijampolė. It was twice rejected by the governor of Suwałki, but finally approved in September 1906. The kindergarten had about 60 children and utilized methods of Friedrich Fröbel, but it was a new concept in Lithuania and thus was received with skepticism by the public. Farmers complained that sending poor children to school meant losing their livestock herders.
Staugaitis organized Žiburys Society and was elected its chairman during its founding meeting on 6 January 1906. Staugaitis worked to organize Lithuanian primary schools in the Suwałki Governorate, a girls' progymnasium in Marijampolė, and an agricultural school (it was not accomplished). When he moved to Lekėčiai, Staugaitis could no longer chair the society, but continued to be involved in its leadership and organized local chapters in Lekėčiai and Pakuonys, and chaired the chapter in Sejny. Staugaitis officially resigned from Žiburys in May 1918. Staugaitis participated in the establishment of Žagrė Society, a cooperative that sold agricultural supplies and organized farmer education. In January 1909, Staugaitis presented on using parishes as basis for organizing charitable societies at three-day courses organized for Catholic activists in Kaunas.
Staugaitis assisted with the establishment of the weekly Catholic newspaper Šaltinis which published the first issue in March 1906. In 1908, priest Juozas Laukaitis established the monthly Catholic magazine Vadovas; Staugaitis became its editor in June 1909. It was aimed at the clergy; it published Lithuanian sermons, enforced consistent liturgy, engaged in polemics against atheist activists, reviewed new publications. Each issue had about 100 pages. Because it lacked collaborators, Staugaitis had to write about a third of the content himself. Due to health reasons, Staugaitis resigned from the magazine leaving it to in August 1912, but continued to indicated as the editor until August 1913. He returned to Vadovas in fall 1913 – spring 1914 while bishop Antanas Karosas and Kuraitis were on extended vacation in France.
During World War I, Staugaitis organized relief to the war refugees. He first worked with the Polish , but there were tensions between Polish and Lithuanian activists due to the alleged Polonisation attempts. Therefore, Staugaitis and other Lithuanian priests withdrew from the committee and obtained aid from the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers. In August 1916, Žiburys Society was reestablished which organized aid to refugees and continued its mission to organize Lithuanian schools. A primary school was opened in Pakuonis and a gymnasium in Marijampolė. Many primary schools were officially organized as kindergartens since they were not subject to German regulations.
Council of Lithuania Proclaiming independence As German military advances stalled in 1917, German leadership rethought their strategy for occupied Lithuania. The policy of open annexation was replaced by a more subtle strategy of creating a network of formally independent states under German influence (the so-called Mitteleuropa). To that end, Germans asked Lithuanians to establish an advisory council (Vertrauensrat). Staugaitis participated in several discussions of Lithuanian activists regarding such council. He attended Vilnius Conference in September 1917 and chaired its discussions on the political future of Lithuania. The conference elected the 20-member Council of Lithuania. Staugaitis received 155 votes for and 48 votes against, and became one of the four priests in the council.