Rittner, Edward

Born December 26, 1845 in Burshtyn in the family of Ignatius and Carolina Rittner. He studied at the gymnasiums of Berezhan and Lviv , and in 1864-1868 he studied law at the University of Lviv. He worked in the government and city services of the city of Lviv as a supplent (assistant teacher) of canon law at the law department of the magistrate of the city of Lviv (1872–1874). In 1870 he defended a doctorate in law at the University of Lviv, in 1873 he received habilitation on the basis of the work “Ist der Kirchenpatron zur Kirchenbaulast verpflichtet”. He became an assistant professor at the Department of Canon Law of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lviv, a year later he became an extraordinary professor and the head of this department, and in 1877 he became an ordinary professor. He was twice dean of the Faculty of Law (1879–1880, 1885), rector (1883–1884) and vice-rector (1884–1885). In 1886 he moved to Vienna, where he worked as an adviser to the Ministry of Education (1886–1893), then was a member of the State Tribunal (1893–1895), Minister of Education (1895–1896) and Minister for Galicia (1897).

In 1881, Edward Rittner became a full member of the Polish Academy of Knowledge , in 1892 he became a full member of the Academy of Knowledge in Prague. Lviv University awarded him the degree of Doctor honoris causa (1894).

As a specialist in canon law, he dealt with issues of the essence of church authority, the hierarchization of church governments and regulations, and the distribution of governments. He investigated the relationship between the law of the Catholic Church with state law and the law of other religious communities. He worked on the electoral reform, in which he proposed a universal vote in Galicia and an order on the compulsory knowledge of the Czech language for officials in the Czech Republic; this project faced opposition from German ambassadors and ultimately led to the resignation of the cabinet of Casimir Baden (1897). In the last years of his life he had a heartache.

He was an ambassador to the Galician regional Diet of the V, VI and VII convocations (1882-1899). During the VII convocation of the Sejm (1895-1901) on June 1, 1896, Edward Rittner replaced the deceased Felix Pogoretsky , but did not live to see the end of the convocation, since he died on September 27, 1899. Emil Mikhalovsky was elected in his place in the Sejm on November 21, 1899.

Edward Rittner's son is writer and playwright Tadeusz Rittner .

• Officer Cross of the Order of Leopold
• Order of the Iron Crown III degree
• Commander's Cross with a star of the Order of St. Gregory the Great

• Celibat w Polsce (1874)
• Die Regierungvorlagen zur Regelung der kirchlichen Verhaeltnisse (1874)
• "Das Eherecht bei den Civilisten" (1875)
• "O poczuciu prawa w społeczeństwie" (1875)
• Glossen zu den Erkentnissen der Verwaltungsgerichtshofes in Kirchenangelegenheiten (1876)
• "Prawo kościelne katolickie" (1878-1879, 2 volumes)
• Śluby cywilne w historycznym rozwoju (1879)
• "Projekt ustawy o konkurencyi kościelnej dla miasta Lwowa" (1880)
• "Rozwody i małżeństwa siedmiogrodzkie" (1880)

• Biogramy uczonych polskich. Część I: Nauki społeczne, zeszyt 3: PZ. - Wrocław 1985.