Parishes priests in Punskas and the nearby parishes until the end 19th century

The article describes the history of ten parishes of the Seinai and Suvalkai poviats: Punskas, Vižainis, Jeleniavas, Suvalkai, Magdalenavas (Vygriai), Krasnopolis, Kolietnykas, Berznykas, Seinai and Smalėnai, in which Lithuanians lived or reside. Copies of civil status files of individual parishes after 1808, which were in the collections of the State Archives in Suvalkai, enabled the author to determine personal data, positions of clergy and the years in which they worked. However, only few such copies survived from the 18th century, while many of them disappeared in unknown circumstances. Due to the fact, that churches lacked clergy, monks were delegated to help them until the early 19th century. The clergy were usually Poles. Despite the fact that later Lithuanians started to perform these functions, all rituals were held in Polish. It was only at the end of the 19th century that Lithuanian was introduced in some churches. Based on the aforementioned church documents and from other sources, it was possible to determine the most priests working in Punskas since the beginning of the parish, while the remaining were identified only on the basis of copies of baptism files