Kunigo Juozo Konstantino Matulaičio savilaidinė veikla: leidinių chronologija ir tematikos
Self-Publishing Activities of the Priest Juozas Konstantinas Matulaitis: Chronology and Topics of Publications

Summary/Abstract: Religious literature became difficult to access during the occupation of Lithuania, especially when the Soviet army occupied the country for the second time in the autumn of 1944. Throughout the Soviet era there was, so to speak, a ‘famine’ of this literature. In this context, the so-called ‘self-Publishing’ emerged. One of the persons involved in this illegal distribution of books was the priest Juozas Konstantinas Matulaitis. During the Soviet occupation, this priest translated and typed and distributed several hundred different books. The books translated during the underground period ended up in typescript form in various libraries and archives: in the parish rectory in Šunskai, where J. K. Matulaitis lived and worked for a long time, in the Centre for the History of the Catholic Church in Lithuania at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the Vytautas Magnus University, and in a few publications in private libraries. The above-mentioned collection of the Vytautas Magnus University was the object of this research. Using analytical-descriptive and classification methods, it was found that J. K. Matulaitis translated books in all his places of ministry, especially intensively in Liudvinavas and Šunskai. The books and manuscripts he published were mostly catechetical, pastoral, sermons, i.e., in the field of practical theology. Another priority was spiritual literature: thoughts, teachings, lives of saints.

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