Dr. Medardas Cobotas passed from this earth on Saturday, August 30, 2009, at the age of 83 due to complications after open-heart surgery performed earlier in the month. He was an Ambassador for Peace with the Universal Peace Federation.
Dr. Cobotas was a physician and educator of gerontological medicine for more than four decades. In the late 1980s, during the Soviet era, he began to serve in the Lithuania Supreme Council and continued after the the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After leaving the Supreme Council in 1994, he founded the "Third Age University," a free university for older people with centers in Vilnius and several other Lithuanian cities. Dr. Cobotas took great pride in his role as a signer of Lithuania's independence, re-establishing Lithuania as an independent state.
He and his wife, Marta Cobotiene, welcomed Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon when they visited Lithuania during UPF's 2005 World Peace Tour. His wife predeceased him, on November 7, 2007. Dr. Cobotas represented Lithuania on UPF's Global Peace Council since 2007.