URBAN, JAN. - Polish Jesuit and writer, b. 23 Jan. 1874 at Brok, in the part of Poland then under Russian rule, d. 27 Sept. 1940 in Cracovia.
U. studied theology at the Seminary of Plock and was ordained a priest in 1899. In the same year he went to Austrian Galicia and entered the Society of Jesus there. In 1902 and 1903 he secretly travelled to Russia to provide spiritual assistance to the Uniates of Podlachia persecuted by the tsarist government (v. RUTENI). When, in 1905, the edict of toleration granted greater freedom to Catholics, U., furnished with special faculties from the Holy See, secretly went to Pietroburgo during the years 1907-10. There he concerned himself with organizing the first Russian Catholic groups of the Eastern rite and with the press, beginning, together with the prelate Okolo-Kulak, the publication of the periodical Faith and Life in Russian, Polish, and Latvian. Hunted by the tsarist police, he succeeded in escaping to Austrian Galicia. There, and later in the re-established independent Poland, U. distinguished himself as a prolific writer and, from 1917 to 1932, edited Przeglad Powszechny, one of the most influential Catholic periodicals in Poland. U. worked intensely to promote Polish Catholics’ interest in the union of the Eastern dissidents and, for this purpose, in 1933 founded the periodical Oriens. His discernment in evaluating events and his wit in controversy won U. great prestige. The moral and material sufferings caused by the German occupation of Poland rapidly led U. to his death in 1940.