FURBAN, Jan. - Jesuit and Polish writer, b.
23 Jan. 1874 at Brok, in the part of Poland then
under Russian rule, d. 27 Sept. 1940 at Cracow.
He studied theology at the Seminary of Płock and was
ordained priest in 1899. In the same year he went to
Austrian Galicia and entered the Society of Jesus. In
1902 and 1903 he went clandestinely into Russia to give
spiritual aid to the Uniates of Podlachia persecuted by
the Tsarist government (v. RUTENI). When in 1905 the
edict of tolerance granted greater freedom to Catholics,
Furban, equipped with special faculties from the Holy
See, went clandestinely to St. Petersburg in 1907–10. There
he organized the first Russian Catholic groups of the
Eastern rite and their press, beginning with the prelate
Około-Kułak the publication of the review Faith and Life
in Russian, Polish and Lettish. Hunted by the Tsarist
police, he escaped back to Austrian Galicia. There and
later in the restored independent Poland, Furban distin-
guished himself as a prolific writer and from 1917 to
1932 directed Przegląd Powszechny, one of the most influ-
ential Catholic periodicals in Poland. He worked inten-
sively to arouse the interest of Polish Catholics in the
union of Eastern dissenters, and for this purpose founded
in 1933 the review Oriens. His insight in assessing events
and his sharpness in controversy won him great prestige.
The moral and material sufferings caused by the German
occupation of Poland brought about his early death in 1940.