RYLLO, MAKSYMILIAN

RYLLO, MAKSYMILIAN. - Gesuita missionario, n. a Podvrosk (Russia) il 31 dic. 1802, m. a Karthum (Sudan) il 17 giugno 1848.
RYLLO, MAKSYMILIAN. - Gesuita missionario, n. a Podvrosk (Russia) il 31 dic. 1802, m. a Karthum (Sudan) il 17 giugno 1848.

He entered the Society in Rome on 29 Aug. 1820, and set out for the East on confidential missionary duties in Mesopotamia and Syria. In Beirut he founded the short-lived Collegio Asiatico (1841) as a centre of outreach, a forerunner of the celebrated Université Saint-Joseph. Later he carried on his apostolate in Malta and Sicily, until in 1844 he was named rector of the Collegio Urbano of Propaganda Fide. In the autumn of 1845 he departed again for the East, heading a missionary expedition into central Africa, and established his headquarters in Khartoum, from which he opened the mission of Upper Egypt.

Endowed with rare gifts and a courage that never faltered before any obstacle, he nevertheless encountered widespread opposition and persecution because of his impetuous originality and the difficult political circumstances in which he found himself. On the centenary of his death the Polish Legation in Beirut had a commemorative plaque affixed in the entrance hall of the Université Saint-Joseph.

BIBL.: M. Germinski, *O. M. R., Tovaryszystwa Jezusowego Misyonarzy Apostolscy*, 2 vols., Cracow 1911-12; J. A. Otto, *Grundung der Neuen Jesuitenmission durch General P. J. F. Roothaan*, Freiburg i. Br. 1939, pp. 151 ff., 178 ff., 237 ff.; J. Kantak, *Le p. M. R. Un ami du Proche-Orient. L’homme aux grandes visions*, mort à la peine, Beirut 1950. Celestino Testore