Father Jurgis Ambraziejus (Ambrozijus) Pabrėža (1771 – 1849 in Kretinga , buried here) – priest, Franciscan, doctor, botanist, the first researcher of Lithuanian flora , one of the most prominent educators of the 19th century.
He graduated from school in Kretinga, and from 1791 to 1794 he studied at Vilnius University , where he studied history, medicine, botany, chemistry, law and theology. He was involved in the uprising led by Tadeusz Kościuszko . In 1794 he became a cleric at the Varniai Seminary . In 1796 he was ordained a priest . In 1816 he entered the Kretinga Franciscan Monastery, where he received the name Ambrose.
He wrote a kind of philosophical work "Ryžtai", in which he systematized the principles of life. He prepared about 50 works on the topic of botany, including the huge encyclopedic publication "Taislius auguminis", where he described 643 plants. The author himself raised money to spend on it, but it was published only in 1900 in America.
He collected a herbarium (~ 800 plant species), a large part of which was taken to Odessa University in the 20th century, and the remaining part (238 leaves) was transferred to Vytautas Magnus University in 1930.