Alfonsas Petrulis (1873-1928) 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 ...

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priest and journalist, and one of the twenty signatories to the

Act of Independence of Lithuania The Act of Independence of Lithuania () or the Act of February 16th, also the Lithuanian Resolution on Independence (),The signed document is actually titled simply , meaning 'decision' or 'resolution', and it "proclaims the restoration of the ...

. Born near

Biržai Biržai (, also known by several alternative names) is a city in northern Lithuania. Famous for its reconstructed Biržai Castle manor, the whole region is renowned for its many traditional-recipe beer breweries. Name The exact origin of th ...

, he attended seminaries at

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and

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, and was ordained in 1899. He then served in a number of parishes in the Vilnius

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

. Petrulis was active in the Lithuanian independence movement from 1899 to 1918; he worked in schools and newspapers, and pressed for the freedom to use the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...

in the church. In 1917 he was a member of the

Vilnius Conference In the history of Lithuania, the Vilnius Conference () or Vilnius National Conference met on 18–22 September 1917, and began the process of establishing a Lithuanian state based on ethnic identity and language that would be independent of ...

, and was elected to the

Council of Lithuania In the history of Lithuania, the Council of Lithuania (; ; ), after July 11, 1918, the State Council of Lithuania () was convened at the Vilnius Conference that took place between 18 and 23 September 1917. The twenty men who composed the c ...

, signing the Act of Independence in 1918. He then travelled to

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, along with four other council members, to encourage formal recognition of the state. After returning, he served as the Council's secretary and worked on those laws concerning religion in the new republic. He continued serving his pastoral duties until his death in 1928.

References

*"Petrulis, Alfonsas". Encyclopedia Lituanica IV: 243. (1970-1978). Ed. Simas Sužiedėlis. Boston, Massachusetts: Juozas Kapočius. LCCN 74-114275. 1873 births 1928 deaths 20th-century Lithuanian Roman Catholic priests People from Biržai District Municipality People from Biržai Members of the Council of Lithuania Lithuanian independence activists {{Lithuania-politician-stub