On November 1, 1978, the Rev. Virgilijus Jaugelis publicly celebrated Holy Mass at the church of Kybartai. For many years he tried to enroll at the Kaunas Theological Seminary, but every year the KGB removed his name from the list of candidates. In 1974, Father Virgilijus Jaugelis was put on trial for duplicating the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania and the following year was released half-dead from labor camp, his sentence not yet completed. Let him die at home. However, he did not die, but determinedly studied for the priesthood.
Father Jaugelis' public appearance at the altar undoubtedly caused the KGB great concern. It means that the time is passed when a youth who did not want to become a KGB collaborator, but only a good priest,could be terrorized in various ways; it means that even good seminarians can no longer be intimidated to any great extent: it is obviously possible to become a priest even without the KGB's favor!
"What can be done?" asked all those who wish to bury the Catholic Church of Lithuania as rapidly as possible. Someone conceived a plan: Let us compromise the underground activity of the Catholic Church in Lithuania and those bishops who consecrate new priests without the KGB's permission.
At the end of 1978, unexpected news travelled across Lithuania: Seminarian Ričardas Jakutis who had been expelled from the Kaunas Theological Seminary in 1977 for immoral behavior was working as a deacon at the church of Nemenčinė! Which bishop could have ordained such a seminarian? Priests who collaborate with the Soviet government began to spread rumors that this was done by one of the exiled bishops—either Bishop Julijonas Steponavičius or Bishop VincentasSladkevičius—or perhaps a clandestine Ukrainian Catholic bishop.
On February 7, 1979, ten priests from the Vilnius archdiocese visited the newly-elected administrator Father Algis Gutauskas to learn who had ordained seminarian Jakutis deacon. Administrator Gutauskas said that Bishop J. Labukas had ordained Jakutis at the villa of Monsignor Česlovas Krivaitis. Msgr. Krivaitis has been giving seminarian Jakutis material assistance and recommended him to Bishop Labukas.
The ordination of Seminarian Jakutis is the first attempt by the KGB to compromise the catacomb activity of the Church: Look who is ordained priest in the underground movement! Everyone who participated in Jakutis' ordination as deacon—Msgr. Krivaitis, Nemenčinė pastor Kazimieras Pukėnas, Bishop Labukas and others—consciously or unconsciously contributed to the KGB plot agains the catacomb activity of the church and served the KGB in rending the ardently sought unity of Lithuania's priests. This affair is also an obvious attempt to deceive the holy See into forbidding the Catholic Church in Lithuania to continue its catacomb activity and thus having everything done in public under the KGB's strict control.
The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania asks Lithuanian priests living in the West to infonn the Holy See of this incident and to ask that even more favorable conditions be granted the underground movement of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, for without catacomb activity, the Catholic Church in Lithuania will meet the fate of the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union.
