Elena Šuliauskaitė

Elena Šuliauskaitė (Šiuliauskaitė) (Sister Gerarda) was born in the village of Stuomenai, Prienai District, into a working class farming (peasant) family. From 1945 to 1953, she studied at Kazlų Rūda Secondary School. In 1953, she enrolled in the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Vilnius State Pedagogical Institute, where she completed two years of study but was expelled for participating in a student demonstration in support of the Hungarian Uprising. She worked in various institutions: in 1957, as a ticket inspector at the Vilnius Passenger Transport Office; in 1957–1959, as a telegraph operator at the Central Telegraph Office; in 1959–1960, as a secretary at the Ministry of Health; in 1960–1961, as a statistician at the Vilnius City Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene; in 1961–1963, as an assistant to an epidemiologist. From 1958, she was a nun of the Congregation of the Sisters Deaconesses of Christ the King. From 1963 to 1965, she worked as a secretary-typist at the Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station; from 1965 to 1966, as a warehouse manager; and in 1966, as an accountant. From 1961 to 1968, she studied Lithuanian language and literature at the Faculty of History and Philology of Vilnius Vincas Kapsukas State University. In 1968, she was employed at the University’s Faculty of History as a senior laboratory assistant in the Department of the History of the Lithuanian SSR. In 1973, by Rector’s Order No. 364/K, she was dismissed at her own request. In her memoirs, Elena Šuliauskaitė recounts: “A meeting was held at the Rector’s Office, attended by the entire university administration and the Party activists. They angrily declared that they had learned I was not only fanatically religious but even a nun, and that I must not be allowed anywhere near young people – and that I had to immediately leave the university.” The last documents in her personal file, preserved in the archives of Vilnius University, are dated 1975, when the State Security Committee requested information about the circumstances of her dismissal. The university’s response stated that she had resigned at her own request. However, published sources indicate that Elena Šuliauskaitė was removed from the university due to her religious beliefs and anti-Soviet activities. In 1972, she became a nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Eucharistic Jesus. From 1975, she was involved in the underground publication of Lietuvos Katalikų Bažnyčios kronika (The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania).