With the help of his uncle, Catholic priest Juozas Židanavičius, Balutis graduated from a teachers' seminary in Skępe (Poland) and a school for land surveyors in Pskov (Russia).

He was drafted for the Russo-Japanese War but decided to escape to the United States where his uncle had founded a Lithuanian parish in Amsterdam, New York.

Balutis started his diplomat career when he was delegated to represent Lithuanian Americans at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

The delegation was recalled in December 1919 and Balutis was offered a job dealing with "particularly important matters" at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kaunas.

After Poland staged the Żeligowski's Mutiny and captured Vilnius Region, Balutis represented Lithuania at the mediation efforts by the League of Nations.

Though Balutis sympathized with the Lithuanian Nationalist Union, he stayed away from party politics and survived many cabinet changes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He was offered the post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at least three times, including during the coup d'état of December 1926, but he refused.

He was drafted to the Russo-Japanese War but decided to escape to the United States where his uncle Židanavičius had founded a Lithuanian parish in Amsterdam, New York.

The university agreed to establish a two-hour daily class on the Lithuanian language and, when the first lecturer left for another job, Balutis became the teacher.

[13] Therefore, Balutis spent considerable amount of time – he estimated some 5,000 hours – collecting data on the proper and accurate Lithuanian place names.

[14] Unable to cover entire Lithuania, he published a color map of Suvalkija, his native ethnographic region, in 1915.

After the conference, Balutis delivered public speeches in Amsterdam and Schenectady about the event and raised money for Lithuanian textbooks to be published by Jonas Basanavičius in Vilnius.

[20] Together with Juozas Gabrys, he undertook an ambitious project to collect and publish all writings of Vincas Kudirka, editor of Lithuanian newspaper Varpas.

[21] Balutis further organized events to commemorate the 50th birth anniversary of Kudirka thus invigorating the society, but resigned as its chairman in 1910.

The bell was decorated with the coat of arms of Lithuania and a quatrain by Balutis declaring that those who do not defend liberty are not worth it.

[29] After the outbreak of World War I, Balutis joined the Lithuanian National League of America (Amerikos lietuvių tautinė sandara), organized by Jonas Šliūpas in October 1916.

[25] The Lithuanian delegation in Paris, headed by Augustinas Voldemaras, was not officially recognized or invited to the Peace Conference.

[2] He also worked to obtain economic aid (financial loans, medical supplies, weapons for the newly established Lithuanian Army) until the delegation was recalled in December 1919.

Balutis was in charge of maintaining direct contact with the Lithuanian delegation that negotiated the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty which was concluded in July 1920.

Balutis was a member of the six-men Lithuania delegation that concluded the Suwałki Agreement with Poland on 7 October 1920 under pressure and supervision of the League.

[40] After the Klaipėda Revolt in January 1923, Balutis and Petras Klimas helped Prime Minister Ernestas Galvanauskas to coordinate Lithuanian diplomatic communication with the League of Nations.

[41] Together with Vaclovas Sidzikauskas, he later negotiated with a three-member commission, chaired by American Norman Davis, of the League of Nations regarding the future of the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory).

[2] In May–June 1927, Balutis negotiated with Tadeusz Hołówko regarding security issues and failed attempt to normalize the relationship with Poland.

[46] A year later, the ministry was reorganized into separate departments dealing with Western (headed by Balutis), Eastern, and Central Europe.

[57] Balutis was received with suspicion that he arrived as an agent of the new authoritarian regime of President Smetona, which was unpopular with the Lithuanian Americans.

[59] During Christmas 1933, Balutis received an order to return to Kaunas from where he was to head a trade delegation to London and remain there as the new envoy.

They advised strengthening the army, depositing funds abroad, reinforcing the 1934 Baltic Entente alliance with Latvia and Estonia, and making preparations to establish a government-in-exile, but nothing tangible was accomplished.

[68] Balutis' position was further complicated by the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942 and his removal from the list of officially recognized and accredited diplomats in the United Kingdom (together with Latvian and Estonian representatives, his name was moved to an appendix listing people of certain diplomatic status without naming the country they represented).

[73] Balutis worked on freeing up pre-war Lithuanian gold reserves (some 2.9 tonnes) held by the Bank of England.

British diplomat Thomas Hildebrand Preston compared Marija to Madame de Staël and claimed that she was a close friend with Sofija Smetonienė, the First Lady of Lithuania.