Vincentas Sladkevičius, M.I.C. (20 August 1920 – 28 May 2000) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

of the

Roman Catholic Church 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 ...

. He served as Archbishop of Kaunas from 1989 to 1996, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1988.

Biography

Vincentas Sladkevičius was born in

Žasliai Žasliai (, ''Zosle'') is a small town in Kaunas County in central Lithuania. In 2011, it had a population of 644. The town was first mentioned in written sources in 1457 and was granted the Magdeburg rights and its own coat of arms in 1792. Hi ...

, Kaišiadorys, to Mykolas Sladkevičius and his wife Uršule Kavaliauskaite. He was the youngest of five children, his siblings being named Ona, Emilija, Jonas and Marija. After studying at the Kaunas Priest Seminary and Theological Faculty in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

, Sladkevičius was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

to the priesthood on 25 March 1944. He then did pastoral work in Kaišiadorys until 1959, including serving as a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

and the

prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect' ...

of studies and discipline at the Kaunas seminary. On 14 November 1957, Sladkevičius was appointed

Auxiliary Bishop An auxiliary bishop is a bishop assigned to assist the diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese. Auxiliary bishops can also be titular bishops of sees that no longer exist as territorial jurisdictions. ...

''sedi datus'' of Kaišiadorys and

Titular Bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

of Abora. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 25 December from Bishop Teofilius Matulionis. However, Bishop Sladkevičius was impeded from performing his ministry by his country's Communist government, and he took up residence at Nemunėlio Radviliškis, where he was under virtual

house arrest House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...

from 1963 to 1982. He was named

Apostolic Administrator An apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic admi ...

''ad nutum Sanctae Sedis'' of Kaišiadorys on 15 July 1982, and became President of the Lithuanian Episcopal Conference on 27 April 1988.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

created Sladkevičius Cardinal Priest of Spirito Santo alla Ferratella in the consistory of 28 June 1988, and later Archbishop of Kaunas on 10 March 1989. In 1993 he entered the Congregation of the Marian Clerics of the Immaculate Conception. He resigned as

' archbishop on 4 May 1996. He was awarded the Order of Vytautas the Great in 1998. Sladkevičius died in Kaunas, at age 79. He was buried in the Cathedral-Basilica of Kaunas following a funeral Mass there on 1 June 2000.

References

External links

Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sladkevicius, Vincentas 1920 births 2000 deaths People from Kaišiadorys District Municipality Lithuanian cardinals 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Lithuania Lithuanian anti-communists Cardinals created by Pope John Paul II Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception Archbishops of Kaunas