Jesuit water-diviner’s service to Maharashtra villagers recalled

By Stan Alla

New Delhi, March 23, 2024: The Lithuanian Embassy in New Delhi on March 22 organized a function to recall the services of a Jesuit priest who worked more than six decades among the poor in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

Jesuit Father Donatas Slapsys, born in Lithuania in 1921, came to India in 1950 and served the people of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra until his death in 2010.

Lithuanian ambassador Diana Mickeviciene welcomed the gathering where Laurynas Kudijanovas made the presentation titled “Heritage and cultural memory of Lithuanian Jesuit missionary Fr. Donatas Slapsys in India.”

Kudijanovas is a doctoral student and research scholar at Vilnius University, Lithuania.

Kudijanovas’ study reveals that Father Slapsys, like other Jesuits who served the people of Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, lived among those on the peripheries. Father Slapsys identified himself with the locals, speaking in Marathi and adapting to their customs and cultural patterns.

Numerous letters Father Slapsys wrote and the entries he made in his dairies reveal his concern for the socio-cultural and religious aspects of the people. They describe the shifts and changes that have been taking place in society.

Kudijanovas said most people in Ahmednagar area remember him as a water-diviner as he had helped many to dig wells and borewells.

While he primarily served the Catholics in the region, Father Slapsys, who was fondly called Slapsys Baba, reached out to all faiths, by praying for them and by blessing them, the doctoral student said.

Roshan Borude, a native of Ahmednagar and student of theology at Delhi’s Vidyajyoti who attended the program, said his parents and grandparents along with the natives of Pimpalgaon Malvi, remembered Father Slapsys as a kind and magnanimous priest who always reached out to the needy.

People of Maharashtra traditionally respect the holy men and women of all religions, seek their blessings and promote and uphold harmonious lives. Slapsys Baba’s life not only radiates joy and holiness, but it beckons the clergy and religious to become a blessing in the lives of all, Borude said.