Leone Giovanni Battista Nigris

Leone Giovanni Battista Nigris was born on 27 August 1884 in Ampezzo, Italy. He was ordained a priest on 18 July 1909. He devoted the next twenty years to teaching and education administration.[1]

On 18 August 1938, Pope Pius XI appointed him titular archbishop of Philippi and Apostolic Delegate to Albania.[2][lower-alpha 1]

He received his episcopal consecration on 25 September 1938 from Giuseppe Nogara, Archbishop of Udine.

On 11 November 1939, Pope Pius XII named him Apostolic Administrator of Southern Albania.[3] In this traditional Orthodox rather than Catholic region of Albania he guided Catholic missionaries to a less aggressive approach to conversions, advising the less aggressive approach of persuasion by providing models of virtuous life rather than through argument; he was suspicious of mass conversions. He feared the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939 would harden sectarian divisions.[4]

In 1945 the new Communist government, intent on establishing a national church without ties to Rome, had him arrested an expelled from Albania as persona non grata.[5]

Returned to Rome, he became secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.[1]

He died in Rome on 21 September 1964 at the age of 80.[6]

• Catholic Hierarchy: Archbishop Leone Giovanni Battista Nigris ^{[self-published]}