Motiejus ValanÄius
Motiejus Valančius (also:. .. . Maciej Wołonczewski; * 16 Februarjul / February 28 1801greg in Nasrėnai at Kretinga, Lithuania; † 17 Maijul / May 29 1875greg in Kaunas) was Bishop of low Lithuania, historian and writer.
Life
Motiejus Valančius was born into a wealthy farming family in the village Nasrėnai at Kretinga. In early youth was allowed to change its entry in the baptismal register. To display noble origin, his name was Polonized to Wołonczewski. This approach was among wealthy villagers quite common, they made the peasant children but educational opportunities available, which remained denied otherwise. In 1816 he joined the school of the Dominicans in Samogitian Calvary and began six years later at the theological seminary in Varniai study theology. In 1824 he moved to the Graduate Seminar in Vilnius, where he graduated in 1828. In the same year he was ordained a priest and spent the next six years as a teacher of religion in Belarus. In 1834 he returned to Lithuania and became a teacher at the secondary school in Kražiai.
From 1840 he held at the Theological Academy of Vilnius lectures in pastoral theology and Biblical Archaeology; In 1842 he received his theological doctorate. In the same year the Czar decreed the removal of the Academy and all its teachers and students to Saint Petersburg. Valančius returned for health reasons in 1845 returned to Lithuania and was appointed rector of the Theological Seminary in Varniai. He remained in this position until 1850. Since he had not been during the uprising of 1830/1831 in Lithuania, he was regarded as relatively apolitical, which is why the Russian government did not object when he was proposed as a candidate for the bishopric of low Lithuania.
Bishop
1850 Motiejus Valančius was consecrated bishop; he was the first farmer who could preside over this diocese. He led them during the next twenty-five years years brought great for Lithuania religious, political and social changes. He expanded and improved the network of schemaitischen parish schools, wrote many religious and secular books and founded in 1858 a Temperenzlerbewegung, which grew to a million members, almost half of the population.
His pastoral and educational work was interrupted by the revolt of 1863-1864 and more difficult because the Russian government drew the reins after the collapse of the revolt. Valančius took everything in his power to undermine the prescribed Russification. So he organized the printing of Lithuanian books and their smuggling and distribution in Lithuania Minor. His activities brought him inevitably into direct conflict with the authorities. 1874 ill Valančius hard and died on May 29, 1875 in Kaunas. He was buried in the crypt of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Legacy
His contributions to the Lithuanian thing was permanent and important. His resistance to the Russian government and the methods he used to defy their orders, especially the books smuggling helped by Knygnešiai to set the Lithuanian national movement in motion. As an educator, as a church administrator, historian, folklorist and writer Valančius was one of the most versatile and influential people in Lithuania of the 19th century.
Source
- Lituanica Encyclopedia, vol. VI. Boston, 1978.