Audrys Bačkis

Who is Audrys Bačkis?

Audrys Juozas Bačkis is a Lithuanian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He currently is the Archbishop Emeritus of Vilnius, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 2001.

Bačkis was born in Kaunas to a Lithuanian diplomat family. As in 1938 Bačkis' father Stasys was assigned to France family stayed in the west after Soviet occupation during World War II. He completed his secondary education at the Institute Saint-Marie-de-Monceau, and studied philosophy at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Issy-les-Moulineaux.

Bačkis then went to Rome to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, and Pontifical Lateran University, there Bačkis obtained his doctorate in canon law. Bačkis was ordained to the priesthood by Luigi Traglia on 18 March 1961, in Rome. He then did pastoral work among Lithuanian Americans in the United States, and finished his studies in Rome in 1964.

In 1964 he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See, serving as secretary of the nunciature to the Philippines, to Costa Rica, to Turkey, and to Nigeria. Bačkis was raised to the rank of Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on 26 June 1965, and was called to the Council of Public Affairs of the Church in the Secretariat of State in 1973. He was the Vatican's delegate to the United Nations Conference in Vienna in 1975, and became Vice-Secretary of the Council for the Public Affairs of the Church in 1979.