User:Milzinas/Jonas Baksys

Father Jonas Bakšys was the second pastor of Saint George Roman Catholic Lithuanian Church, located in Rochester, New York.

in 1930, the first pastor of the Saint George Roman Catholic Lithuanian Church, Father Juozas Kasakaitis succumbed to cancer at a very early age of 45. He had been a very energetic, active, Lithuanian priest, beloved by the whole parish and mentioned only with great esteem. Another Lithuanian priest graduating from Saint Bernard’s in 1920 was Father Jonas Bakšys, who worked among Lithuanians in Hartford and Waterbury, Connecticut.

In 1930 Father Jonas Bakšys was appointed as the second pastor of Saint George. It was he who was responsible for finishing building the present Saint George’s church and expanding the parish’s grammar school to eight grades. Father Bakšys was a great Lithuanian patriot. When after Lithuania’s Independence Day celebration in the church in 1932 he finished Mass by leading in the singing of the Lithuanian National Anthem, the event was circulated among all the Lithuanian parishes in the USA, while the Bishop of Rochester received some complaints.

Having learned from Petras Pikūnas, a parishioner who served in the military in Europe, of the plight of Lithuanian refugees of World War II who fled their country from Soviet terrorism, Father Bakšys immediately organized ways to help them. Much clothing was collected and sent overseas; and, in a city-wide campaign in June, 1947, under the auspices of the local chapter of United Lithuanian Relief Fund, $10,000 was raised. When immigration rules permitted Lithuanian refugees to come to the USA, Father Bakšys himself sponsored many families, and with the help of his assistant, Father Pranas Valukevičius, found jobs for many of the new arrivals.

Because of failing health, Father Bakšys, in 1956, handed over the pastorate to Father Pranas Valukevičius.