PRATARMö - Lietuvių katalikų mokslo akademija

378 DR. ALGIMANTAS KASPARAVIČIUS *84
the Holy See, and their application in international affairs had a positive meaning
to Lithuania and undoubtedly provided certain international security guarantees
to the recently re-established state. On the other hand, the internal confessional-national
and social-political structure of the country motivated the government
of Lithuania to establish and maintain close international relations
with the Vatican. During the interwar period the absolute majority of the population
of independent Lithuania were Roman Catholic Lithuanians, and one of
the most influential political forces in the country was the Christian Democratic
Party, closely tied with the Catholic Church in Lithuania. Thus, for the absolute
majority of Lithuanian citizens the moral authority of the Holy See strengthened
the sense of their identification with the national state and the feeling of national
security.
Due to internal and international circumstances the diplomatic relations
between independent Lithuania and the Holy See developed with a certain content
and in many ways. These relations developed in several stages, which we
can compare with the high and low tides of the sea. The importance of the Holy
See to Lithuania increased especially after the Vatican recognized the Republic
of Lithuania de jure on 10 November 1922. The Holy See did this several weeks
earlier than the most influential secular countries of Europe: Great Britain, France,
and Italy.
The legal settlement of relations between the Republic of Lithuania and the
Holy See opened a new, more fruitful page of bilateral cooperation. The Government
of Lithuania on many occasions turned to the Holy See for support and appealed
to its authority in dealing with or solving its most painful foreign policy
problems. The diplomatic relations of Lithuania and the Vatican in the 1920s
survived two significant moments: 1) On 4 April 1926 Pope Pius XI announced
the very carefully formed and diplomatic Lithuanorum gente bull, on the basis
of which the Vatican established the Church Province of Lithuania; 2) On 27
September 1927 Lithuania and the Holy See signed a concordat.
The establishment of the Church Province of Lithuania helped the Catholic
Church in Lithuania to become an uniform, modern confessional organism, , subordinate
directly, without any mediators, only to the Curia in Rome. In the cities,
which became the centers of the archdioceses and dioceses – Kaunas, Telšiai,
Klaip÷da, Panev÷žys, Kaišiadorys, Vilkaviškis – new hearths of confessional
and spiritual culture began to form. The Church Province of Lithuania, established
in 1926, and its structure effectively survived for almost all the 20 th century,
it did not disappear even during the fifty years long freeze of Soviet totalitarianism,
and was newly reformed only after the re-establishment of independence
at the end of 1991.
Of no less importance for the Republic of Lithuania and its Catholic community
was the formation of the concordat. The concordat consolidated the Lithuanian
Catholic community, regulated, and expanded its rights and duties in
the state. The Catholic Church became an equal institution in the organizational
state structure. The concordat had a positive influence on the political develop-