Gintaras Grušas
Gintaras Linas Grušas is a Lithuanian–American prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been the Archbishop of Vilnius, Lithuania, since April 2013.Biography
Grušas was born in Washington, D.C., on 23 September 1961. After World War II, his mother and sister had spent 16 years behind the Iron Curtain before they were able to join his father in the United States. They were among just 200 people allowed to leave the Soviet Union to be reunited with family members in the United States. The family relocated to California and raised their son in Agoura. He earned a BS degree in Mathematics and Information Science at the University of California at Los Angeles. He spent five years working as a technical consultant in marketing for IBM, which, he said, helped prepare him for the management and project-planning skills that a pastor needs.
As a seminarian, Grušas studied at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio. Subsequently, Grušas studied at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome where he earned a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1994. He was ordained a priest.
After his ordination he worked as secretary-general of the Lithuanian Episcopal Conference until 1997 and from 2001 to 2003 he was rector of the seminary in Vilnius.
He earned a Licentiate of Canon Law in 1999 and a Doctorate of Canon Law in 2001 from the Angelicum.
On 2 July 2010, Pope Benedict XVI named him Military Ordinary of Lithuania and he was consecrated a bishop on 4 September.
On 5 April 2013, Pope Francis appointed him Archbishop of Vilnius to succeed Cardinal Audrys Juozas Bačkis. He was installed on 23 April 2013.
On 9 June 2014 he was named a member of the Congregation for the Clergy and on 13 July 2016 of the Secretariat for Communications.
He was elected President of the Episcopal Conference of Lithuania on 28 October 2014.
