Nijolė Sadūnaitė (22 July 1938 – 31 March 2024) was a Lithuanian clandestine

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

of the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

period who worked with the '' Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania''. In 1975 she faced three years of imprisonment for her efforts. She spent time imprisoned in

Mordovia Mordovia ( ),; Moksha language, Moksha and officially the Republic of Mordovia,; ; is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, situated in Eastern Europe. Its capital city, capital is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of S ...

and then in Boguchany. She reportedly faced a variety of abuses in this period, including torture. She wrote ''A Radiance in the Gulag'' about her experiences. In 2018, Sadūnaitė received the "Lithuanian Freedom Award". She was the first female in history to receive the award. Sadūnaitė died on

Easter Sunday Easter, also called Pascha (Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek language, Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, de ...

, 31 March 2024, at the age of 85.

References

External links

LITHUANIANS RALLY FOR STALIN VICTIMS
(by Bill Keller, 24 August 1987,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

)
Lithuania Rights Unit Protests to Gorbachev
(

) 1938 births 2024 deaths 20th-century Roman Catholic nuns 20th-century Lithuanian women writers 21st-century Roman Catholic nuns Lithuanian anti-communists Lithuanian Roman Catholics People from Kaunas Soviet dissidents Grand Crosses of the Order of Vytautas the Great Lithuanian people imprisoned in the Soviet Union {{Lithuania-bio-stub