Kaunas - Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organisations, will represent Pope Leo XIV at celebrations marking the centenary of the canonical erection of Lithuania’s ecclesiastical province. The ceremony will take place on 27 June 2026 at Kaunas Cathedral. As is customary, the appointment was made by means of a papal letter addressed to the prelate and drawn up in Latin.
The choice is far from incidental. Archbishop Gallagher, the titular Archbishop of Hodelm, is effectively the Holy See’s foreign minister. The Letter notes that he has an in-depth knowledge of the circumstances of the Church in that part of Europe, and for this reason the Pope considers him particularly well placed to convey, through his office, the Holy See’s concern for Lithuania’s Catholic community. The appointment also follows a formal request from Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius, President of the Lithuanian Bishops’ Conference.
A centenary rooted in the rebirth of the State
The anniversary falls on 4 April 1926, which that year was Easter Sunday. Through the Apostolic Constitution Lituanorum gente, Pius XI established the ecclesiastical province, with Kaunas as its metropolitan see, and assigned to it the suffragan dioceses of Telšiai, together with the Prelature of Klaipėda, Panevėžys, Vilkaviškis and Kaišiadorys.
It marked the fulfilment of a long-standing aspiration among Lithuania’s bishops and faithful. Following the re-establishment of the independent Lithuanian State at the end of the First World War, the local Church was finally able to acquire an orderly structure, free from ecclesiastical jurisdictions which the preceding political settlement had rendered obsolete. The architect of the plan was Archbishop Jurgis Matulaitis, also known as Matulewicz, then Apostolic Visitor to Lithuania and a member of the Marian Clerics. A skilled diplomat, capable of reconciling the needs of the Holy See with those of the State, he prepared the framework later adopted in Lituanorum gente. He died on 27 January 1927 and was buried in the crypt of Kaunas Cathedral. Saint John Paul II beatified him on 28 June 1987, during the sixth centenary of the baptism of the Lithuanian nation.
The province established in 1926 would later endure the harsh Soviet persecution, a period that produced in Lithuania many witnesses to the faith and martyrs. After the country regained its freedom, the Church was reorganised once again. In 1991, this led to the establishment of a second ecclesiastical province, that of Vilnius. It is this history of suffering and fidelity to which Leo XIV refers when his Letter speaks of a Church “established in difficult circumstances and having passed through the harshest trials”.
The Pope’s Letter: justice, peace and charity “in turbulent times”
A close reading of the papal Letter reveals that its opening echoes almost word for word the language of Lituanorum gente. The Church’s concern, it states, contributes “not only to the growth of the Catholic faith, but also to civil prosperity itself”. The reference links the magisterium of Leo XIV with that of Pius XI.
The Pope has granted Archbishop Gallagher the faculty to preside at the Eucharistic celebration and, in his name, to greet and bless the clergy, the people, the civil authorities and all the faithful. The document exhorts them, “in these turbulent times”, to love justice, build peace and safeguard charity, the foundation of Christian life. Its closing reference is to Leo XIII’s encyclical Sapientiae christianae.
fr.W.R.
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