Rev. Vincentas Senkus in Marian monastery: years of work and hope

Vienuolinis gyvenimas tiek Lietuvoje, tiek Lenkijoje ar kituose katalikiškuose kraštuose turėjo ir tebeturi didelę įtaką tikinčiųjų religiniam sąmoningumui. Bažnyčia buvo, ypač persekiojimo laikais, patikimiausias tautinio identiteto ir tautines kultūros išsaugojimo veiksnys. Tad vienuolynai ir būdavo labiausiai persekiojami. Šio straipsnio tikslas - atskleisti kunigo Vincento Senkaus asmenybę, jo reikšmę persekiojamai Katalikų Bažnyčiai, o ypač gęstančiam marijonų vienuolynui. Kunigas Senkus kilęs iš to paties krašto kaip ir palaimintasis Jurgis Matulaitis, tik ją tėviškes gretimose parapijose. Kunigas V. Senkus 1892 metais tampa paskutiniu baltųjų marijonų generolu. Mirus kun. J. Čėsnai nebebuvo kam vadovauti vienuolynui, o nuo 1908 metą V. Senkus liko vienintelis vienuolis Marijampolėje caro administracijos formaliai uždarytame vienuolyne. Tokią carinės valdžios politiką vienuolynai Lenkijoje ir Lietuvoje patyrė nuo pat okupacijos pradžios. Vienuoliją naikinimo įkarštis dar labiau sustiprėjo po 1863 metą sukilimo. V. Senkus buvo bažnyčios žmogus, pamaldus, uolus, geras vienuolis, nepraradęs vilties net beveik beviltiškose situacijose. Straipsnyje atskleista, kaip kunigas V. Senkus išsaugojo marijonų vienuolijos idėją, pats uoliai laikėsi vienuolinio pašaukimo net tada, kai vienuolynas formaliai caro valdžios buvo uždarytas. V. Senkus dar sulaukė laiko, kai beveik neturint vilties marijonų vienuolija, kad ir pogrindžio sąlygomis, pradėjo naują savo gyvavimo etapą.Religious orders of Catholic Church always had and still have great influence on the religious life oflay people, and especially in the times of persecution they survived as the sources of national identity and cultural life. Therefore, they often underwent different repressions of anti-democratic regimes. Nowadays it is difficult to find family roots of Fr. Senkus. The archives of his native Sunskai parish as well as the most archives and libraries of the region had been decimated during the war and post-war period. It is known that the last Superior General of the White Marians was born on the 6th of October, 1840 in Marijampole county, Sunskai eldership. At the age of 15 he finished primary school in Marijampole, and in 1858 he joined the Marian Order in the same town and started his studies of the priesthood. He passed his exams in Seinai and was ordained as a subdeacon by the famous Samogitian bishop Motiejus Valancius. Later he studied at the Christian theological Academy in Warsaw (1862-1866) and got a diploma.There he had to wait for the appropriate age to be ordained as a priest and in 1864 he became one. As a priest with a degree in theology, he got back to Lithuania and worked in Marijampole for some time. Later he was sent to the neighbouring parish of Sasnava, where he built a church. During the years of tsarist occupation, when the Catholic Church was persecuted, Fr. Senkus became the Superior General of the White Marians in 1892. Fr. Vincent Senkus remained in a formally closed monastery as a parish priest. Living on the hope of God, the old Superior General believed in a miracle which happened, when in underground conditions, a young priest, professor of St. Petersburg Spiritual academy Jurgis Matulaitis with the permission of the Holy See made his first monastic vows. It happened in 1909 in Warsaw, in a private chapel of Lithuanian bishop Ruskys. Fr. Jurgis Matulaitis, under the assistance of Fr. Senkus, made his perpetual vows, and prof. Fr. Petras Bucys started his novitiate. In such way the Order was restored. The secret restoration of the Order was chosen because the tsarist Russian authority made fighting with Catholic Church one of its most important goals. As the consequence of this fight, dioceses were reorganised in a non-canonical way under the assistance of civil authorities, there was expropriation of Church's property, restrictions of bishops' and priests' powers, persecution of seminarians, promotion of alcoholism, propagation of Orthodoxy, suppression of Lithuanian press, closing of monasteries. Nevertheless the Order revived with new power, and the hope of Fr. Senkus was fulfilled, and at the end of his life he saw the new beginning of Marian Order. However, Fr. Senkus, though he loved Lithuania, used Polish language in liturgy, having the intention to join Lithuania with Catholic Poland in order to avoid russification of Lithuania and the influence of Orthodoxy. So we cannot blame Fr. Senkus for his old viewpoint, but together with other priests he delivered Lithuanian books for his parishioners paying big sums of money, encouraging people to read, educate themselves, to love their language and their country; he also supported Catholic Action movement in Lithuania. Fr. Senkus was substituted by a new Superior General Jurgis Matulaitis, later archbishop of Vilnius, Pope Pius XI's apostolic visitator to Lithuania, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II