Giovanni Losi

Giovanni Losi
Losi about 1865
Born	Giovanni Losi (1838-11-29)29 November 1838 Caselle Landi, Italy
Died	27 December 1882(1882-12-27) (aged 44) El Obeid, Sudan

Giovanni Losi M.C.C.I., (born 29 November 1838 – 27 December 1882) was an Italian Catholic priest. He was a member of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus and acted majority of his ministry in South Sudan.

He published, with father Luigi Bonomi, the first catechism and dictionary in Nobiin language, unknown in Europe until that moment.

Born in Caselle Landi in 1838, he was baptized on the same day in the village's parish church. The family moved to Roncaglia when he was still a child and later, he entered the episcopal seminary of Piacenza. He was ordained a priest in 1862.^[1]

Ten years later, in 1872, he entered the Missionary Institute of Verona, founded by Daniele Comboni, to leave with him for Sudan the following year. He became the personal confessor of father Comboni.

He was superior of the El Obeid mission until 1878, with no good relations with the local population, of Muslim faith, who had always opposed him. After Comboni's death in 1881, he was appointed superior ad interim for the entire Central African mission.^[2] He fell ill with scurvy and died on 27 December 1882 at the age of 44.^[3]

He was buried in El-Obeid, but his tomb was desecrated by fundamentalists when the Mahadis conquered the region in 1889.^[4]

In Caselle Landi, his hometown, the street that runs alongside the church and leads to the countryside was dedicated to him.

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