RYLLO, MAKSYMILIAN. - Jesuit missionary, b. at Podvorsk (Russia) on 31 Dec. 1802, d. at Karthum (Sudan) on 17 June 1848.
Having entered the Order in Rome on 29 Aug. 1820, he set out for the East with the task of confidential missions in Mesopotamia and Syria, and founded at Beyrouth, as a central point of outreach, the short-lived Asian College (1841), precursor of the celebrated University of S. Giuseppe. He subsequently exercised his apostolate in Malta and Sicily, until in 1844 he was appointed rector of the Urban College of Propaganda Fide. In the autumn of 1845 he again departed for the East, at the head of a missionary expedition to central Africa, and established its seat at Karthum, opening there the mission of Upper Egypt.
Endowed with rare gifts and with a courage that yielded before no difficulty, he nevertheless had to endure adversities and persecutions of very wide repercussion, owing to his impetuous originality and the difficult political circumstances in which he found himself. On the occasion of the centenary of his death, the Polish Legation at Beyrouth had a commemorative plaque affixed in the entrance hall of the University of S. Giuseppe.