Ian Daukshis

After the collapse of the USSR, Greek Catholics began to come out of hiding and recover their structure, and Father Daukshis decided to return to Catholicism and serve in the Eastern rite. In June 1995, he was received into the Catholic Church by Bishop Sofron Dmyterko, OSBM. After joining Catholicism he served for Belarusian and other Greek-Catholics in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Vilnius, where he once began his ministry. Also, once a month he celebrated the liturgy of the Belarusians in Kaunas. Father Ian Daukshis died on 7 January 2009 in Vilnius during a heart surgery.

So, in 1972 Daukshis entered the Leningrad Orthodox Seminary, which at that time was led by the proponent of ecumenism and cooperation with the Catholic Church the Metropolitan of Leningrad, Nikodim (Rotov). In 1977, Ian Daukshis was ordained to the priesthood. From 1989 to 1995 served as rector of the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Apostles Peter and Paul [lt] in the city of Šiauliai in western Lithuania.

Father Ian Vatslavich Daukshis (Belarusian: Ян Даўкшыс, romanized: Jan Daŭkšys; Russian: Ян Вацлавич Даукшис, romanized: Yan Vatslavich Daukshis; 19 August 1952, Kukli [be], Belarus - 7 January 2009, Vilnius, Lithuania) was a Belarusian Greek Catholic priest and a Catholic convert from Russian Orthodoxy.