St. Joseph's Church in Saločiai

This Church is at 1, Mūšos Street in Saločiai, Pasvalys district, on the left bank of the River Mūša. It is a bricked building equipped in 1945. In 1514, Miss Barbara Pečkaitė established a parish and gave it some land and forest. She and her successors the family Liutkai committed to maintain the parish priest by dedicating him five threescore of pennies annually. In 1528, Mr. Albertas Kmita increased a donation. The parish priest used to receive various privileges from the manor, but he had to keep a teacher or a seminarian. The first Church of Saločiai was small and wooden. In the second part of the sixteenth century the family Radziwill from Biržai conquered the Catholic parish wealth, destroyed the Church and in its place built a house of worship of Protestants. In 1632, Catholics raised a case to Radziwill and won it. In about 1644, there was built the Catholic Church. The village of Taupriai was donated to it. In about 1755, a new wooden Church was built, which was updated in 1835. In 1841, Saločiai had 4 priests, the parish priest held 160 hectares of land. The parish priest Orlauskas got permission from Kaunas Governor to repair the Church. Under the pretence of repairing he built a new wooden Church in 1873, which was consecrated by Bishop Alexander Beresnevičius in 1879. In 1887, the Kaunas governor allowed to build a bricked fence for the cemetery. In 1911, a department of Lithuanian Catholic Total Abstinence Society was founded. The parish priest Aleksandras Štombergas renewed and strengthened the Church from 1926 to 1928 years. On the 26 th July 1944 it burned down, even a belfry bell was fused. In 1945, the priests Kazimieras Pukėnas and Antanas Balys, who were administrators, equipped the Church in the brick building of two-storey rectory. The parish priest A. Štombergas was buried in the churchyard.