The museum is housed in a presbytery built more than 120 years ago. Blessed Teofilius Matulionis lived here. He had an extraordinary personality: a man canonized for his faith and his tireless work for the Church.
He was repeatedly accused of anti-Soviet activities, and in 1930, he was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment in the harsh regime of the Solovki camp. After three years of suffering, he returned to Lithuania, where he did not renounce his faith, and actively opposed the actions of the USSR regime against the community of believers. This steadfast martyr made a bread rosary and wrote a prayer book by hand. Even the prison guards called him a real man, and the KGB agents predicted in advance that this man deserved the title of a saint.
In 1981, in the book "The Restless Mortal. Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis”, the prelate, theologian, and writer Pranas Gaida wrote the following lines: "The person of the late Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis shone a very special light in the life of Lithuania, which spread not only in the countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia, but also across the Atlantic Ocean, especially in North America, where there has long been a fairly large Lithuanian diaspora. This light was not scientific or political, but rather personal, moral and radiant with Christian values. It crystallised in long suffering, revealing a man who walked quietly and resolutely along the paths of thorns, but who saw the broad vision of life, on the final horizon of which shines the invincible victory of good".
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