The Chicago Lithuanians, parishioners of the St. George's Parish, could not stand any longer the injustice and improper conduct of Rev. Krawczunas in our parish; they made a complaint to the bishop, asked the bishop to remove this improper priest from the parish, and in his place the bishop should give us a better, more honest and sober Lithuanian priest. In the month of March, the six church societies sent a complaint to the bishop against Rev. Krawczunas. For two months they did not receive any answer from the bishop. The committee then called meetings in all parts of Chicago, in order to get signatures of individual parishioners, and then to send a second complaint to the bishop. When they obtained 2,000 signatures of individual parishioners, that second complaint was sent not by mail but by the committee delegates of four men, and they personally delivered this complaint to the bishop's chancellor in his office.

The chancellor accepted the complaint, and he told the committee to bring 2the affidavits as confirmation of this complaint. The chancellor said that the spiritual court is like the civil court, the complaint must be confirmed by an affidavit. So you must do likewise in the spiritual court. The civil court demands witnesses, so the spiritual court requires witnesses. The witnesses and affidavits must state when and where they have seen the priest drunk; to whom the priest refused to give confessional cards; to whom he refused to give the Easter confessional cards without the payment of $8. These affidavits must be notarized and delivered to me, said the bishop's chancellor.

To get the affidavits, the parishioners decided to call meetings in all parts of the city. The first meeting for that purpose was on Sunday, May 26, at Liandanskas Hall, 3301 S. Morgan St. When at this meeting, the question of the immorality of the Rev. Krawczunas was raised, two men of the priest's own committee spoke about the immoral conduct of the priest. The first man of that committee, Mike Rakanskas, said:

"We, the parish committee, saw the causes of the turmoil in our parish that arose from the Rev. Krawczunas' refusal to give the account of the 3parish budget. In order to uphold from destruction the parish, we, nine members of the committee, decided to write the following constitution: (1) The parish must have its own administration elected by the parishioners, (2) The treasurer can be the priest himself, but the bishop must put his bond, (3) The secretary must be elected by the parishioners, and not like at present by the priest, (4) Every parishioners must have a book, and when he pays, it must be marked in his book, (5) All the income and expenses must be stated in the parish book, and the committee will, every month, examine the books. The priest must announce from his pulpit the committee's report, (6) The parish meeting should be held every year; if necessary oftener, (7) The rector has no rights to build, to make contracts without the knowledge and consent of the parish. We believe that by doing that, we will eliminate the troubles from the parish and the infidels will have no cause to criticize us. To write this constitution we have appointed a more educated man than we are, George Andruszis. True, who wrote the constitution as we have told him; on the following Sunday we were preparing to go to the Rev. Krawczunas, to present him the constitution as a weapon against the enemies of the church.

When the Rev. Krawczunas learned about the preparation of this new constitution, he called separately on each member of the committee to talk with him about the new constitution. We understood the priest's scheme, so five of us went to the priest, but Rev. Krawczunas hid himself. We found his assistant, Vicar Steponaviczius. The vicar told us that the rector would not agree on this new constitution; that the civilians had no right to interfere with the parish budget affairs; that the bishop would not permit the parishioners to examine the parish books, etc. The priest Steponaviczius told us to go to Andruszis, because Andruszis had shown the constitution to Rev. Krawczunas and they had talked about it.

We went to Andruszis. He said that the priest told him to throw the constitution into the waste basket. That the outsiders have no right to look into the parish budget, etc. And finally the Rev. Krawczunas told him to go to the devil, and said that he does not need any committee, etc.

Mr. Rakanskas, Joseph Urba and A. Misewiczius confirmed the above statement.

At this meeting were elected F. Pupanskas, 3252 S. Morgan St., and Kaz Kunce, 923 W. 22nd St., to help the committee to prepare the affidavits by appealing through the newspapers to get those people whom the priest refused to confess without the six dollar payments.

The meeting president:

S. Abromaviczius

Secretary: F. Pupanskas.