The school actively protested and resisted mandatory religious education and clashed with Lithuanian authorities.
[3] The school was established as Lithuanian war refugees were returning from Russia and, influenced by the Russian Revolution, did not want to educate their children in the traditional Marijampolė Gymnasium.
[5] In 1922, the Ministry of Education wrote to the school ordering it to stop student participation in the teachers' council.
Two weeks later, on 6 May 1925, Minister of Education Kazimieras Jokantas [lt] (who previously was the principal of the traditional Marijampolė Gymnasium) issued order to close the school effective 30 June 1925.
[6] Jokantas cited the lack of the mandatory religious education and frequent arrests of students as the main reasons for the closure.
[6] The first priest assigned to the school, Kazimieras Rėklaitis [lt], lasted only a few days due to the anti-religious attitudes of other teachers and students.
[2] He resigned in protest of school's attempts to excuse two students from attending the religion class because, according to the canon law, such education was mandatory to everyone.
The plays included Lithuanian works (America in the Bathhouse by Keturakis, Blinda by Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, Apsiriko by Žemaitė) and international classics (Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov,[8] The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol).
[10] In January 1923, communists organized the funeral of Juozas Janušauskas, leader of a local labor union who died in Kaunas Prison.
Catholics protested the funeral as they did not want to allow the burial of a "godless" man in the town's cemetery and communists clashed with the police.
[10] On 12–13 January 1925, the police searched the student dormitory maintained by Žiburėlis society as well as the apartment of teacher Stasys Matulaitis.
[4] Two members of the Seimas accused the police for torture during the interrogations (beating and electrocution) of the arrested students.