President Grybauskaitė gives a speech at the ceremony, held outside in Thursday's hot, sunny weather. Several foreign heads of state were in attendance. Photo used courtesy of the Office of the President.

VILNIUS — Though it is customary to have the remains of public figures on display in Vilnius Cathedral, the Lithuanian branch of the Catholic Church did not allow it during the funeral mass for late Algirdas Brazauskas, who served as both president and prime minister.

Brazauskas, revered by many Lithuanians for his role in securing the country’s independence from the Soviet Union, did not have his remains on display in the cathedral because he was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Kaunas Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius revealed on Wednesday. He said that people couldn’t be rich and powerful without following the ways of the church and still expect the rewards.

“The death of wealthy, powerful [think they] can live without marriage, be communists and repentance can be done with the church still serving them, while the poor man is forgotten,” Tamkevičius said.

Brazauskas died on June 26 after a struggle against cancer. Though he was a key figure in the Communist Party, he was also credited with disrupting commands and programs from Moscow to help Lithuanians and eventually split the local branch of the party into the Communist Party of Lithuania which was pro-independence.

Previous to the revelation, the church had remained tight-lipped over why his remains had been barred from the country’s largest holy shrine.

Bishop Juozas Tunaitis postulated earlier that it would be difficult to control the process of bringing the coffin to the cathedral.

“I cannot give you an explanation, we had looked into it and decided to offer not to bring it in to the cathedral. There is a rationale behind it which is known only to us and I cannot and don’t want to explain that to you,” Tunaitis told the press.

Later the church admitted that because he was part of the Communist Party and because his second marriage was not consecrated in church, his body was not allowed into the church.

Brazauskas married his second wife in the civil registration office, where partners marry in a secular ceremony.

Both President Dalia Grybauskaitė and former President Valdas Adamkus voiced their grievances over Brazauskas’ body not being allowed into the cathedral, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. Instead the ceremony was held outside in Thursday’s hot, sunny weather.

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