Monsignor Luigj Bumçi, senior cleric, political activist, native of the Supreme Council of the Albanian State, was born in Shkodër. He spent his first years of schooling in his hometown. He studied philosophy and theology at the College for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome. He started his ecclesiastical career at the beginning of the 20th century as a priest and parish priest. In 1912, he was appointed bishop of the Catholic diocese of Lezha, based 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 President of the Albanian State, until 1921. He passed away in 1994. (In the photo: Monsignor Luigj Bumchi)
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#/media/File:Luigj_Bum%C3%A7i.jpg
Graphic processing: AHCF
