A missionary between two worlds
Martysz belonged to the generation of Slavic clergy formed in the Orthodox seminary at Chelm at the turn of the twentieth century, when the seminary's rector was the future Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow. Ordained at the close of 1900, he was sent to the Orthodox mission in North America, then under the same hierarch's oversight.
He served first in Alaska, at Afognak, where the sources credit him with the building of a church dedicated to the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, and with the care of the surrounding Spruce and Woody Islands. After several years he was transferred to the continental United States and Canada, serving parishes in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York and in the Canadian west before returning to Europe in 1912, after nearly twelve years of missionary labor.
Chaplain of the Polish army
After the First World War and the restoration of the Polish state, Martysz was called in September 1919 to organize Orthodox pastoral provision within the new national army. By 1921 he held the position of head of the Orthodox military chaplaincy with the rank of colonel, and the Church raised him to the dignity of archpriest. He led the Orthodox chaplaincy until his retirement in 1936.
The synaxarion relates that when, on Great and Holy Friday in 1945, he was warned of approaching danger, he refused to flee, saying that he had harmed no one and that Christ did not run away. His household was then attacked and he was killed.
Glorification and veneration
The new martyr was at first buried near the place of his death and was later reinterred in Warsaw, where his relics were gathered in advance of his glorification. On March 20, 2003 the Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Poland promulgated the official Act of his canonization, and the glorification was solemnly celebrated at Chelm that June. He is venerated as a patron of Orthodox Christians serving in the Polish army, and his feast is kept on May 4.
