private tutor. In 1904, Bučys together with Maironis and Adomas Jakštas wrote the program of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party. In December 1905, during the Russian Revolution of 1905, Būčys participated in the Great Seimas of Vilnius and became a member of its five-member presidium when Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas resigned in his favor. He did not chair a single session, but attempted to moderate extreme positions and opinions. He later faced criticism that before the end of World War I, he supported autonomy for Lithuania within the Russian Empire and not full independence. In Saint Petersburg, Bučys contributed articles to Lithuanian (he had his own sections in Šaltinis and Vadovas, Vilniaus žinios, Lietuvių laikraštis, Nedėldienio skaitymas, Draugija, Viltis, Vienybė), Polish (Przegląd Katolicki, Wiadomości Archidiecezjalne, Wiadomości Kościelne, Atenaum Kapłańskie), Belgian (Le Messager du Sacré-Coeur de Jésus), and American (New World in Chicago) press. He supported seven different Lithuanian societies and organizations in Saint Petersburg. Matulaitis-Matulevičius joined him as a professor at the academy in 1907. They often discussed reviving the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception which at the time had only one elderly member, but it had to be done in secret due to various Russification policies. On 29 August 1909, in a private chapel of auxiliary bishop at the clergy house of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, Matulaitis-Matulevičius became a member of the Marian Fathers and Būčys began his novitiate. In 1910, he refused an offer to become suffragan bishop of Samogitia. During World War I, Būčys served as a priest and teacher to a Lithuanian refugee community in the Izmaylovo District near Moscow. In August 1916, Matulaitis-Matulevičius as Superior-General of the Marian Fathers, sent Būčys to Chicago, Illinois where Matulaitis-Matulevičius personally established the first house of the Marian Fathers in August 1913. He traveled via Finland, Sweden, Norway, UK, and France to Naples in Italy where he boarded a ship on 16 October. He reached Brooklyn on 3 November 1916. He received 70,000 rubles from the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers for the journey and was tasked with petitioning Pope Benedict XV to declare the Lithuanian Day, an international fundraising drive for the benefit of war refugees. Bučys was refused, but priest Konstantinas Olšauskas later managed to get the approval. In United States, Bučys served as the pastor of Lithuanian parishes in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (August 1917 – May 1918) and Waukegan, Illinois (June