Antanas Liuima

Garbės daktaras / Honorary Doctor (Suteiktas vardas 1992-02-07)

Jesuit priest Antanas Liuima (1910–2000), the first Lithuanian professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, the initiator of the re-establishment of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science (LCAS) in the diaspora, its long-standing chairman and academic, and the recipient of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas of the Third Class, was awarded VMU honorary doctorate regalia in 1992.

Antanas Liuima was born on 28 January 1910, in Pavyžintys village (Ažudvarės), Utena district. After graduating from Utena “Saulė” gymnasium in 1928, he spent a year in a seminary before joining the Jesuit Order in 1929. His studies took him abroad, where he deepened his knowledge of philosophy in Valkenburg, Netherlands, from 1931 to 1934. He continued his studies in Lithuania at Vytautas Magnus University’s Faculty of Theology and Philosophy between 1934 and 1939, where he studied Lithuanian studies and pedagogy. In 1940, he moved to France, where he studied theology at the Lyon Catholic Institute. In 1942, he was ordained a priest and in 1943, he earned a licentiate in theology. He later studied ascetical and mystical theology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse, earning a doctoral degree in theology in 1950 after defending his thesis on St. Francis de Sales. From 1951, he taught ascetical and mystical theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he was conferred the title of professor in 1962. Antanas Liuima was the first and, for a long time, the only Lithuanian professor at this university.

Antanas Liuima began his active work while still a student. From 1934 to 1938, he taught Lithuanian and Latin at the Jesuit gymnasium in Kaunas. From 1947 to 1949, he worked at the Lithuanian Catholic Mission in Paris and served as its director from 1948 to 1949. During his studies in Toulouse and later, Liuima contributed to the newspaper “Žvaigždė” (Star), magazines “Laiškai lietuviams” (Letters to Lithuanians), “Lux Christi”, and the Boston “Lithuanian Encyclopedia”, the Jesuit journal “Archyvum Historicum Societatis Iesu”, and other publications, writing articles on St. Francis de Sales, St. Peter Canisius, and ascetical and mystical theology, delivered numerous lectures, and authored four volumes of “Historia Spiritualis” (History of Ascetical Theology) in Latin. In the autumn of 1951, Liuima began his academic work at the Pontifical Gregorian University as an adjunct professor of ascetical and mystical theology. In 1956, upon the re-establishment of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science in Rome, he was elected as its scientific secretary and in 1959, as its chairman. He visited Lithuania several times in 1989, focusing on the re-establishment of the LCAS. In 1991, he led the first LCAS assembly in Vilnius, and in 1992, when the LCAS was relocated to Vilnius, he became its first Honorary Chairman. On his initiative, the “Saulė” gymnasium in Utena was restored, and in 1994, he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Utena.

Prof. Antanas Liuima passed away on 28 January 2000 in Rome and was buried in the Jesuit Chapel of the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome.

Based on information provided by VMU Library.