Keynote speaker: Gintaras Linas Grušas
Title: Archbishop of Vilnius, Lithuania
Workplace: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vilnius
Gintaras Linas Grušas is the current Archbishop of Vilnius, Lithuania. He was appointed to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vilnius by Pope Francis on 5 April 2013 and was installed on 23 April 2013. He succeeded Cardinal Audrys Juozas Bačkis who retired, having reached the age limit.
His parents were separated by World War II and, after 16 years of being caught behind the Iron Curtain, his mother and 17-year-old sister were among just 200 families allowed to leave the Soviet Union to be reunited with family in the United States.
Grušas was born in Washington, D.C. After primary and secondary education he attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) where he earned a BS degree in Mathematics/Computer Science. He spent five years working as a technical consultant of marketing for IBM, which, he said, helped prepare him for the management and project-planning skills that are necessary as a pastor.
Grušas is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome where he earned a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1994 and was ordained a priest.
After his ordination he worked as secretary-general of the Lithuanian Episcopal Conference until 1997 and from 2001-2003 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 Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.
On 9 July 2010, he was appointed Military Ordinary by Pope Benedict XVI and was consecrated bishop on 4 September.
