• OUR LADY of CZĘSTOCHOWA: st Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionOUR LADY of CZĘSTOCHOWA
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
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Roman Catholic
St Sigismund parish
05-507 Słomczyn
85 Wiślana Str.
Konstancin deanery
Warsaw archdiocese, Poland

  • St SIGISMUND: St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
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Martyrology of the clergy — Poland

XX century (1914 – 1989)

personal data

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  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin), source: newsaints.faithweb.com, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    source: newsaints.faithweb.com
    own collection
  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin); source: Roman Dzwonkowski, SAC, „Lexicon of Polish clergy repressed in USSR in 1939—1988”, ed. Science Society KUL, 2003, Lublin, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    source: Roman Dzwonkowski, SAC, „Lexicon of Polish clergy repressed in USSR in 1939—1988”, ed. Science Society KUL, 2003, Lublin
    own collection
  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin) - Contemporary painting, St Stanislaus church, Czortków, source: bobrka.przemyska.pl, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    Contemporary painting, St Stanislaus church, Czortków
    source: bobrka.przemyska.pl
    own collection

religious status

Servant of God

surname

SPYRŁAK

forename(s)

John (pl. Jan)

religious forename(s)

Justin (pl. Justyn)

  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin) - Grave plague, Fr Domicans crypt, communal cemetery, Czortków, source: nieobecni.com.pl, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    Grave plague, Fr Domicans crypt, communal cemetery, Czortków
    source: nieobecni.com.pl
    own collection
  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin) - Commemorative plaque, St Stanislaus church, Czorktów, source: mbc.malopolska.pl, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    Commemorative plaque, St Stanislaus church, Czorktów
    source: mbc.malopolska.pl
    own collection
  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin) - Commemorative plaque, St Dominic church, Warsaw-New Town-New Town, source: own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    Commemorative plaque, St Dominic church, Warsaw-New Town-New Town
    source: own collection
  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin) - Commemorative plaque, St Dominic church, Warsaw-New Town, source: own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    Commemorative plaque, St Dominic church, Warsaw-New Town
    source: own collection
  • SPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin) - Commemorative plaque, St Stanislaus church, Sankt Petersburg, source: ipn.gov.pl, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOSPYRŁAK John (Fr Justin)
    Commemorative plaque, St Stanislaus church, Sankt Petersburg
    source: ipn.gov.pl
    own collection

function

religious cleric

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

congregation

Order of Preachers OPmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.07.06]

(i.e. Dominican Order, Dominicans)

diocese / province

St Hyacinth Polish Province
St Hyacinth Galicia Province OP
Lviv archdiocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]

date and place
of death

02.07.1941

Chortkivtoday: Chortkiv urban hrom., Chortkiv rai., Ternopil, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.20]

details of death

After German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and start of the World War II, after start of German occupation, did not leave Chortkiv and remained with his co‐brothers despite that the Russians took over most of the monastery as military quarters. In 11.1939, in danger of imminent arrest, for some time went into hiding near Chorktiv.

Allowed members of a budding Polish clandestine National Party organisation (part of emerging Polish Clandestine State) to meet in the church choir.

There on the night of 20/21.01.1940 the Chortkiv uprising, aiming to release Polish prisoners held in Chortkiv prison, take over the railway station, hijack a train and force it to go to Romania, started.

The uprising failed and at least 21 young Poles were subsequently murdered by the Russians.

Aafter German attack of Russians in 06.1941, during panic retreat of Russians before advancing Germans, Russians slaughtered c. 1,300 Polish and Ukrainian prisoners held in Chortkiv prison.

Few days later apprehended in the monastery (church's sacristy was vandalized) and together with 3 co‐brothers brought by the local Jews helping the genocidal Russian organization NKVD to a local river Seret bank and murdered — shot to the back of the head.

Four other co‐brothers were murdered in the monastery itself.

The Jews felt a particular aversion towards him from the beginning of his ministry in Chortkiv, for one of his first decisions was to build a special tenement house within the monastery and bring in Polish merchants from Poznań. They were in direct competition with Jewish interests, who basically monopolized trade in the Chortkiv area ( and not only there).

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Russians / Jews

sites and events

ChortkivClick to display the description, 06.1941 massacres (NKVD)Click to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

07.12.1895

Bronowice Małetoday: part of VI Bronowice District of Kraków city, Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.08.19]

religious vows

15.09.1913 (temporary)
23.03.1917 (permanent)

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

20.09.1919 (Lvivtoday: Lviv urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.16]
)

positions held

17.05.1937 – 1941

prior — Chortkivtoday: Chortkiv urban hrom., Chortkiv rai., Ternopil, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.20]
⋄ St Stanislav the Bishop and Martyr monastery, Dominicans OP

1935 – 1937

friar — Chortkivtoday: Chortkiv urban hrom., Chortkiv rai., Ternopil, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.20]
⋄ St Stanislav the Bishop and Martyr monastery, Dominicans OP — also. trustee, i.e. administrator of monastery estate, catechist

24.11.1933 – 1935

friar — Lvivtoday: Lviv urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.16]
⋄ Corpus Christi monastery, Dominicans OP — also. trustee, i.e. administrator of monastery estate, confessor of the St Joseph Sisters

26.11.1930 – 1933

prior — Jarosławtoday: Jarosław gm., Jarosław pov., Subcarpathia voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.04.01]
⋄ Blessed Virgin Mary of Sorrows monastery, Dominicans OP — also: chaplain of the Third Order of Saint Dominic TOP

1928 – 1930

deputy prior — Zhovkvatoday: Zhovkva urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.22]
⋄ Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary monastery, Dominicans OP — also: prefect of the boarding school for boys, catechist at the Felician Sisters Teachers' Seminary

1927 – 1928

friar — Zhovkvatoday: Zhovkva urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.22]
⋄ Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary monastery, Dominicans OP — also: prefect of the boarding school for boys

1926 – 1927

friar — Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07]
⋄ Holy Trinity monastery, Dominicans OP — monastery major sacristan and cantor

1923 – 1926

friar — Zhovkvatoday: Zhovkva urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.22]
⋄ Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary monastery, Dominicans OP — deputy prefect of the boarding school for boys

1919 – 1923

friar — Lvivtoday: Lviv urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.16]
⋄ Corpus Christi monastery, Dominicans OP — also: further theological studies

till 1919

student — Lvivtoday: Lviv urban hrom., Lviv rai., Lviv, Ukraine
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.16]
⋄ Philosophical and Theological Studies, Corpus Christi monastery, Dominicans OP

from 1913

friar — Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07]
⋄ Holy Trinity monastery, Dominicans OP — also: student of the last years of gymnasium

15.09.1912 – 15.09.1913

novitiate — Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07]
⋄ Holy Trinity monastery, Dominicans OP

15.09.1912

accession — Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07]
⋄ Holy Trinity monastery, Dominicans OP

others related
in death

BOJAKOWSKIClick to display biography Stanislav (Bro. Andrew Mary), CZERWONKAClick to display biography Martin (Bro. Reginald), IWANISZCZÓWClick to display biography Charles (Bro. Methodius), LONGAWAClick to display biography Francis (Fr Jerome), MISIUTAClick to display biography Stanislav (Fr Jack), WINCENTOWICZClick to display biography Joseph, ZNAMIROWSKIClick to display biography Adam (Fr Anatol Mary)

sites and events
descriptions

Chortkiv: When the news of German attack reach Chortkiv Russians murdered approx. 200 prisoners in local jail (some where walled over, the other massacred on the prison yard). The rest were driven to Humań, where approx. 700 of them were massacred. 350 more died deported to Russia. On 02.07.1941 Russians entered the Dominican convent in Chortkiv and murdered, with the help of local Jews, all religious (four were murdered within the walls of the monastery, four others were marched out to the banks of Seret river and there executed with a shot to the head). Next they defiled the church and burnt the monastery. Chortkiv remembered then — now totally forgotten — an attempt on 20.01.1940 by mainly Polish gymnasium students to free Polish prisoners from local jail, taking over the train station and driving a train to a nearby Romania. The attempt failed, 3 Russians died. In reprisal Russians arrested 128 people, murdered 35 and the rest exiled to Siberia. (more on: www.blogpress.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.31]
, www.fronda.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.05.09]
)

06.1941 massacres (NKVD): After German attack of Russian‐occupied Polish territory and following that of Russia itself, before a panic escape, Russians murdered — in accordance with the genocidal order issued on 24.06.1941 by the Russian interior minister Lawrence Beria to murder all prisoners (formally „sentenced” for „counter‐revolutionary activities”, „anti‐Russian acts”, sabotage and diversion, and political prisoners „in custody”), held in NKVD‐run prisons in Russian occupied Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — c. 40,000‐50,000 prisoners. In addition Russians murdered many thousands of victims arrested after German attack regarding them as „enemies of people” — those victims were not even entered into prisons’ registers. Most of them were murdered in massacres in the prisons themselves, the others during so‐called „death marches” when the prisoners were driven out east. After Russians departure and start of German occupation a number of spontaneous pogroms of Jews took place. Many Jews collaborated with Russians and were regarded as co‐responsible for prison massacres. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19]
)

Ribbentrop‐Molotov: Genocidal Russian‐German alliance pact between Russian leader Joseph Stalin and German leader Adolf Hitler signed on 23.08.1939 in Moscow by respective foreign ministers, Mr. Vyacheslav Molotov for Russia and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany. The pact sanctioned and was the direct cause of joint Russian and German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the World War II in 09.1939. In a political sense, the pact was an attempt to restore the status quo ante before 1914, with one exception, namely the „commercial” exchange of the so‐called „Kingdom of Poland”, which in 1914 was part of the Russian Empire, fore Eastern Galicia (today's western Ukraine), in 1914 belonging to the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. Galicia, including Lviv, was to be taken over by the Russians, the „Kingdom of Poland” — under the name of the General Governorate — Germany. The resultant „war was one of the greatest calamities and dramas of humanity in history, for two atheistic and anti‐Christian ideologies — national and international socialism — rejected God and His fifth Decalogue commandment: Thou shall not kill!” (Abp Stanislav Gądecki, 01.09.2019). The decisions taken — backed up by the betrayal of the formal allies of Poland, France and Germany, which on 12.09.1939, at a joint conference in Abbeville, decided not to provide aid to attacked Poland and not to take military action against Germany (a clear breach of treaty obligations with Poland) — were on 28.09.1939 slightly altered and made more precise when a treaty on „German‐Russian boundaries and friendship” was agreed by the same murderous signatories. One of its findings was establishment of spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and in consequence IV partition of Poland. In one of its secret annexes agreed, that: „the Signatories will not tolerate on its respective territories any Polish propaganda that affects the territory of the other Side. On their respective territories they will suppress all such propaganda and inform each other of the measures taken to accomplish it”. The agreements resulted in a series of meeting between two genocidal organization representing both sides — German Gestapo and Russian NKVD when coordination of efforts to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and Polish leading classes (in Germany called «Intelligenzaktion», in Russia took the form of Katyń massacres) where discussed. Resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including thousands of priests presented here, and tens of millions of ordinary people,. The results of this Russian‐German pact lasted till 1989 and are still in evidence even today. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30]
)

Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic‐pre‐Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence […], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions […] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”… Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28]
, www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28]
)

sources

personal:
www.jerzyrobertnowak.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.06]
, www.zulice31.parafia.info.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.06]
, krzysztofpozarski.files.wordpress.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.04.16]
, cracovia-leopolis.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.06]

bibliographical:
Biographical lexicon of Lviv Roman Catholic Metropoly clergy victims of the II World War 1939‐1945”, Mary Pawłowiczowa (ed.), Fr Joseph Krętosz (ed.), Holy Cross Publishing, Opole, 2007
Lexicon of Polish clergy repressed in USSR in 1939‐1988”, Roman Dzwonkowski, SAC, ed. Science Society KUL, 2003, Lublin
Mysterium iniquitatis. Clergy and religious of the Latin rite murdered by Ukrainian nationalists in 1939‐1945”, Fr Józef Marecki, Institute of National Remembrance IPN, Kraków 2020
original images:
newsaints.faithweb.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.13]
, bobrka.przemyska.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.09.02]
, nieobecni.com.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.04.18]
, mbc.malopolska.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.03.14]
, ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02]

LETTER to CUSTODIAN/ADMINISTRATOR

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MARTYROLOGY: SPYRŁAK John

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