NATO officers, Nobel laureate receive state decorations on State Day’s eve

According to the president, those decorated have contributed to Lithuania being an innovative country and a nation whose voice is heard in the world and that today has more friends than ever before.

Gintaras Linas Grušas, the Archbishop of Vilnius, was awarded with the Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great, and Liudas Mažylis, a professor at Vytautas Magnus University who earlier this year found an original copy of Lithuania’s Act of Independence of Feb. 16, 1918 in a German archive, was decorated with the Cross of Commander of the Order for Merits to Lithuania.

Heinrich Brauss, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Defense Policy and Planning, and Robert Huber, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, a Nobel laureate and an active promoter of cross-border academic and scientific cooperation, on Wednesday accepted their Crosses of Commander of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. The state decorations were awarded to them earlier this year, on the occasion of the Day of Restoration of State, February 16.

The Crosses of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania were conferred on Lieutenant Colonel Christoph Huber, the commander of the NATO battalion stationed in Lithuania, philosopher Algis Mickūnas, and others.

Makoto Asashima, an active promoter of scientific cooperation between Lithuania and Japan, was presented with the Cross of Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania.