Paulius Baltakis

Paulius Antanas Baltakis, O.F.M. (1 January 1925 – 17 May 2019) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic prelate who served as the last Apostolic Visitor for the Lithuanians in Diaspora from 1 June 1984 until his resignation in 2003.

Biography Baltakis was born into a family of Lithuanian farmers as the second of eleven children and named as Antanas. He studied in gymnasiums in Kretinga and Anykščiai until he was arrested by Nazi agents in 1944 and sent to forced labour.

After the liberation from the forced labour camp at the end of World War II, he began to study at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1945 and a year later joined the mendicant Franciscan Order, where he was tonsured with the name "Paulius" and made his solemn profession of vows on 15 September 1950. Baltakis was ordained as a priest on 24 August 1952, after completing his theological studies.

From 1952 Baltakis was attached to the parish and missionary work among Lithuanian emigrants in the United States and Canada. He organised the construction of a monastery printing house, Lithuanian cultural centre "Kultūros židinys" and taught at a Lithuanian school. In 1979 he was elected provincial superior of the Lithuanian St. Casimir Franciscan Province and served in this office until 1984.

Baltakis died on 17 May 2019 in Kaunas.