Baron William Apor of Altorja was born on February 29, 1892, at Segesvár in Hungarian Transylvania of a noble family whose records are traceable back to the 13th century and possibly earlier. The Apors were granted the baronial title in 1713. The future bishop's father was a high Hungarian official who shortly after William's birth was transferred to the Habsburg imperial/royal administration in Vienna. It is there that the boy first went to school. He continued in an Austrian Jesuit college at Kalksburg, but to counteract his wholly German education he was sent for the final two years of grammar school to another Jesuit institution in Kalocsa in Hungary. At the end of his schooling he was admitted as a student for priesthood by his relation Count Nicholas Szécheny, the Hungarian bishop of Győr, who promptly despatched Apor for the next five years to the theological faculty of Innsbruck, also run by Jesuits. He gained (apparently just) a doctorate in theology in 1916. Meanwhile Bishop Szécheny was transferred to Nagyvárad and took Apor with him. Ordained priest in 1915, he served as prefect of the Nagyvárad theological seminary between 1917 and 1921. But his main place of attachment was to the city of Gyula, where he was curate from 1915 to 1917 and then parish priest for 20 years from 1921 to 1941. In 1929, he was given the title of "abbot-parish priest" to commemorate an extinct medieval abbey in the neighbourhood, granting him the right to wear an abbot's hat and carry a crook during solemn church services. It was in Gyula that our paths first crossed after my family setted there in 1928. Concern for the poor was his distinctive mark during the years of depression, accompanied by a determination to protect the persecuted, i.e. the Jews, during the late Thirties and the war years. Finally, in 1941 the news that Pius XII had nominated Apor bishop of Győr both saddened and delighted  the people of Gyula. He was consecrated in his parish church by Cardinal Justinian Serédi, prince-primate of the Hungarian Catholic Church, assisted by two other bishops. Apor left for his new seat and it was there that in October 1944 I met him for the last time in dramatic circumstances. 

Apor played a leading role in the Hungarian episcopal assembly  through his whole-hearted rejection of the anti-Jewish measures introduced by the government, and especially  after the German takeover of the country in March 1944. As president since 1943 of the Holy Cross Society established to protect baptized Jews, he understandably displayed a particular concern for the members of his flock. He nevertheless condemned without reservation any legal discrimination based on racial theory. When the civil authorities ordered everyone considered Jewish to move into the newly-formed local ghettos, Apor openly pilloried from the pulpit those who claimed that there were people, groups or races that could be hated or tortured. To deprive innocent people of their freedom and civic rights was a flagrant denial of human and divine justice. He firmly remonstrated with the minister for home affairs, and when a priest sent by him to offer solace to Jews was refused entry to the ghetto by the police, he wrote to the prime minister and personally appproached the local Gestapo. When told that they were simply obeying Hitler's orders, Apor retorted: "Tell the Führer that the divine law of justice is obligatory even for him." Obviously all his efforts were of no avail.

After news from Auschwitz had reached the bishops, Apor — who had privileged information, his brother being Hungarian ambassador to the Vatican and his sister the head of the Hungarian Red Cross — urged the primate, Cardinal Serédi, to issue a pastoral letter condemning the persecution of the Jews. As the primate was dilly-dallying — he feared that such an intervention might engender increased cruelty and even  endanger the Church — Apor wrote three further letters to the cardinal, pressing him to send an ultimatum to the government. Finally, by the end of June 1944 the letter was ready and was printed. But the plan was reported to the authorities (by Serédi?) and predictably its distribution was forbidden, so that it was never read in the churches. 

By April 1945 Soviet troops were besieging Győr. Apor generously offered shelter to a large number of frightened civilians in the cellars of the bishop's castle. On Good Friday, April 30, a group of drunken Russian soldiers burst into the episcopal residence looking for women. With noble courage, the bishop confronted them and ordered them to get out. One of the soldiers shot him three times and they all ran away. He died a martyr three days later on May 3, but the women were saved.