Monsignor Luigj Bumçi (1872–1994), senior cleric, political activist, member of the Supreme Council of the Albanian state, passed away. He was born in Shkodër, where he spent his first years of schooling. He studied philosophy and theology at the College for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome. He started his ecclesiastical career as a priest and parish priest at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1912, he was appointed bishop of the Catholic diocese of Lezhë with headquarters in Kallmet, where he lived and worked until the end of his life. Luigj Bumçi was also active in the country’s political events on the eve of independence. In 1911, he participated in the talks between the Albanian rebels of Mbishkodra and the Ottoman authorities. In December 1918, he was elected a member of the provisional government that emerged from the Congress of Durrës and, at the same time, a member of the delegation of this government to the Peace Conference in Paris. From June 1919 to February 1920, Luigj Bumçi was appointed chairman of that delegation. At the Congress of Lushnja (1920), he was elected a member of the Supreme Council for 4 years, established to temporarily perform the duties of the head of the Albanian state until 1921. (In the photo: Monsignor Luigj Bumçi)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 1, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 330-331.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigj_Bum%C3%A7i
Graphic processing: AHCF
