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Edward Aleksander Władysław O'Rourke (October 26, 1876 - June 27, 1943) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and bishop of Riga and the first head of the bishopric of Danzig (Gdańsk). O'Rourke was from an Irish family, which had moved to Eastern Europe. He received a widespread European education and learned a number of languages. Of an Irish ancestry, born in what later became Belarus, stateless due to political situation, he took on Polish citizenship in 1939 shortly before his death in 1943.

Early life

O'Rourke was born October 26, 1876 in Basin, Minsk (modern Belarus), to an aristocratic family of distant Irish ancestry. After graduating from the famous Jesuit college in Chyrów (then Russia, now Ukraine), in 1898 he went to Riga, Latvia, where in 1903 he graduated from the Trade and Mechanics Faculty of the University of Riga. In 1903 he moved to Freiburg, Germany, where he continued his studies at the faculty of law, but the following year he moved to the theological faculty at the University of Innsbruck in Austria-Hungary.

Holy orders

On October 27, 1908 he was ordained a priest in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) and in 1918 he became the bishop of Riga.

Danzig and Gdańsk

On April 24, 1922, Pope Pius XI nominated O'Rourke to the post of an Apostolic Administrator of the Free City of Danzig. After the creation of the diocese of Danzig on December 30, 1925, O'Rourke became the first bishop of Danzig as its first head. First having a good relationship with the authorities, after 1933 he conflicted with the new local Nazis.

His successor after his death was the bishop of Danzig Carl Maria Splett.

Final years

Finally, under pressure from the Nazi senate in 1938 he was dismissed to Rome, where he died June 27, 1943. Due to the conflicting political situation he had become stateless and therefore in 1939 he took on Polish citizenship.

In 1972 his ashes were moved to his former bishopric of Danzig, now Gdańsk and buried in a crypt in the Oliwa Cathedral.

Ancestry and relations

• John O'Rourke (1728 - 1786)
• Cornelius O'Rourke
• Lieutenant General Joseph Cornelius O'Rourke (1772 -1849)
• Count Moritz O'Rourke
• Count Nicholas O'Rourke

O'Rourke travelled to Ireland in the 1920s to research his Irish ancestry. He wrote a book “Documents and Materials for the History of the O'Rourke Family.” .

External links

• Religious Life
• University of Freiburg
• University of Innsbruck
• Catholic Church in Latvia
• Catholic Church in Poland

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