Blessed Marian Skrzypczak: Polish Catholic Priest, Pastor of Plonkowo and Martyr of 1939
A young diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Gniezno who stayed with his parishioners and was killed on October 5, 1939, in the first weeks of the German occupation.
At a Glance
- Born
- April 15, 1909, Janowiec Wielkopolski (a September 15 date appears in one older source, UNCERTAIN)
- Died
- October 5, 1939, Plonkowo, Poland; aged 30
- Titles
- Blessed; priest and martyr; diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Gniezno
- Feast
- June 12 with the 108 Polish Martyrs; October 5 in some local devotion
- Veneration
- Beatified June 13, 1999, by Pope John Paul II in Warsaw; not canonized
- Patronage
- No official patronage; moral courage and fidelity under threat are devotional themes
- Who Was Blessed Marian Skrzypczak?
- Family and Childhood
- The Call to the Priesthood
- Pastoral Work in Rogowo, Plonkowo and Glinno Wielkie
- September 1939: The Occupation Begins
- October 5, 1939: Death at Plonkowo
- Resistance, Faith and the Meaning of Martyrdom
- From Local Memory to Beatification
- Relics and the Shrine at Plonkowo
- Why He Matters to Eastern Christian Readers
- Frequently Asked Questions
Who Was Blessed Marian Skrzypczak?
Blessed Marian Skrzypczak was a Polish diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Gniezno. He was killed on October 5, 1939, at Plonkowo, when he was thirty years old, during the first weeks of the German occupation of Poland. He is one of the 108 Polish Martyrs of the Second World War, beatified by Pope John Paul II in Warsaw on June 13, 1999.
A small correction is needed to some popular summaries. His death is dated 1939, not 1940, in the archdiocesan sources. He was a Latin Catholic priest, not a member of a religious order, and he has not been canonized. He is a Blessed, which means the Church permits public veneration but has not yet named him a saint.
His story is short, and its strength lies in its ordinary details: a country curate, a modest rectory, and a decision to stay with the people entrusted to him. This article keeps to what the sources support, and it marks TRADITION and UNCERTAIN where the record is thin or where accounts disagree.
Family and Childhood
Marian Skrzypczak was born on April 15, 1909, in Janowiec Wielkopolski, in the Greater Poland region. At that time the area belonged to the German Empire under Prussian administration. One older Catholic periodical gives September 15 as the birth date, while later archdiocesan and local accounts give April 15. April 15 is better supported, but the baptismal register would settle the question (UNCERTAIN).
A local historical account names his parents as Tadeusz Skrzypczak and Wladyslawa, born Zietek. His father kept a drugstore in Janowiec before the First World War, and the family later moved to Gniezno, apparently in 1919, after the Greater Poland Uprising and the return of the region to Poland.
He attended secondary school in Znin. Seminary papers reproduced by local historians include a recommendation written in July 1930 by his teacher, Father Augustyn Galezowski, who described him as a young man of good conduct and ability and a member of a Marian sodality. The sources do not give the names of all his siblings, and they mention only that a brother studied at a university.
The Call to the Priesthood
Skrzypczak was raised as a Catholic, and there is no record of a conversion from another faith. His vocation seems to have grown in the ordinary way, through family life, parish devotion and a school education that led toward the seminary. No sudden vision or dramatic turning point is recorded, and none should be added.
A local account dates his application to the seminary at Gniezno to June 1930. The recommendations that support it describe a serious and well regarded young man. He completed his formation at the archdiocesan seminary and was ordained a priest in June 1935 by Auxiliary Bishop Antoni Laubitz.
The exact day of ordination differs between accounts. Recent archdiocesan biographies give June 5, 1935, while a more detailed local article gives June 15 and names the cathedral in Poznan as the place (UNCERTAIN). He celebrated his first Mass at the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Gniezno before taking up his first parish work.
Pastoral Work in Rogowo, Plonkowo and Glinno Wielkie
His first post was as curate at Rogowo, where the parish priest, Father Kuczma, was seriously ill. Local accounts say that Skrzypczak carried much of the parish work during that illness and helped arrange the funeral when the older priest died in 1936. By 1936 he had moved to Plonkowo as curate, and he later became responsible for the nearby parish of Saint Anthony at Glinno Wielkie.
Witness recollections, preserved in the Church documents about his life and death, describe a friendly and approachable priest. He is remembered as attentive to poor families, fond of teaching children, and careful in preparing his sermons. These descriptions come from testimony gathered after his death, so they are valuable but should be read as memory and not as contemporary records.
Local histories credit him with courses for young women, with religious instruction and youth work, and with help in building a modest rectory at Glinno Wielkie, where his father is said to have helped find money. One source dates the start of his administration of that parish to November 1, 1938, while others speak more loosely of a time shortly before the war (UNCERTAIN). He founded no institution and left no known writings.
September 1939: The Occupation Begins
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Polish priests were among those targeted during the occupation as part of a wider attack on the religious, intellectual and civic leaders of the nation. In Greater Poland, which was soon annexed to the German state, local German residents, some of them young men with Nazi sympathies, became a danger to the clergy.
A detailed local account says that on September 7 Skrzypczak set out with parishioners from Glinno Wielkie and Plonkowo to flee toward Warsaw, but the group met advancing German forces and was ordered to return. This corrects a simple picture in which he never left the parish. He first sought safety with his people, as many did, and then came back to a parish where normal life had collapsed.
By late September, according to later Catholic accounts, warnings reached him that local German youths planned violence against the clergy. The sources say an older German resident warned him, and that he thought of going to his parents in Torun. He stayed because of his duty and the needs of those who depended on him. The warning episode is well known in later narratives, but its details cannot be rebuilt without the original witness files (TRADITION and UNCERTAIN).
October 5, 1939: Death at Plonkowo
On the evening of October 5, 1939, a group of local German Nazi sympathizers came to the rectory at Plonkowo. The main account comes from the testimony of a witness named Czeslaw Drzewucki, which was used in the beatification records. The surname is spelled Dziewucki in some summaries, so the spelling is UNCERTAIN.
According to this witness tradition, the people in the house had been praying the Rosary when the men broke in and demanded to know where the priest was. Skrzypczak was struck with a bayonet and beaten, then forced outside and made to walk toward the village. Near the church, shots were fired and he fell. A published account says three shots were heard, and that a cry to Jesus was heard from the home of the organist nearby.
The witness account says his last words were an appeal to Jesus for mercy and for forgiveness for his killers. The Archdiocese of Gniezno preserves the substance of this appeal, but the exact wording rests on transmitted testimony and cannot be independently checked (TRADITION). His body was left in a ditch and recovered by parishioners the next morning, and the funeral took place under German observation. The names of the killers and the later legal fate of the men are not well documented in the sources examined.
Resistance, Faith and the Meaning of Martyrdom
It is important to say what kind of resistance this was. No source examined shows that Skrzypczak joined an armed group, took part in sabotage or engaged in any military activity. His resistance was pastoral and spiritual: he stayed available as a Catholic priest at a time when that identity itself put him in danger. His beatification recognizes martyrdom for the faith and not political or military action.
The accounts do not present him as fearless. They describe fear and hesitation, and they say that his courage lay in carrying on his duties while he understood the risk. For readers who ask for moral courage, this is the heart of his example, and it is more honest than a picture of a man who never doubted.
No individual miracle attributed to his intercession was found in the Vatican or archdiocesan sources consulted (UNCERTAIN). His cause concerned martyrdom, not a proven healing. There is an active local devotion at his relics, but that devotion does not by itself prove miraculous events, and no stories of visions, apparitions or incorrupt remains should be told without documents.
From Local Memory to Beatification
Cardinal Jozef Glemp played an important part in keeping his memory alive. According to the Archdiocese of Gniezno, Glemp began gathering evidence about the murdered priest while he served as secretary to Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, and he later supported the inclusion of Skrzypczak among the Polish martyrs of the Second World War.
The wider group was examined by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and a positive finding on martyrdom is recorded for November 20, 1998. Pope John Paul II beatified Skrzypczak with the other Polish martyrs in Warsaw on June 13, 1999, and in his homily he spoke of Christians who stayed faithful under persecution, including priests who would not abandon their ministry.
Scholars of local history still point to open archival questions. These include the baptismal entry that would settle his birth date, the exact day and place of his ordination, the full original deposition of the main witness, and the records that would name the men responsible. Until those documents are studied, careful writers present the established core of the story and mark the rest as unsettled.
Relics and the Shrine at Plonkowo
Skrzypczak was first buried in the parish cemetery at Plonkowo. On December 5, 2006, his remains were canonically examined and moved into the local church for veneration. Catholic reports of the time describe the exhumation, the examination and the solemn transfer.
In 2009 relics were taken to his birthplace, Janowiec Wielkopolski. In September 2013 the Archdiocesan Shrine of the Priest Martyrs was established at Plonkowo, and his remains remain central to its life. Pilgrims can visit the shrine, and the archdiocese holds commemorations around the anniversary of his death on October 5.
The collective memorial of the 108 Polish Martyrs falls on June 12, and the common date is confirmed in liturgical documents of communities that use the group celebration. The sources examined do not mention a separate approved Mass or office for him alone, so his public liturgical memory belongs mainly to the common memorial of the martyrs.
Lord Jesus, You asked mercy for those who wronged You. Through the prayers of Blessed Marian, give me courage to stay faithful to my duties when I am afraid. Teach me to forgive those who do me harm, and keep me close to those You have entrusted to my care. Amen.
This is a short original devotional prayer, not an official liturgical text, and it was not written by Blessed Marian Skrzypczak.
Why He Matters to Eastern Christian Readers
Blessed Marian Skrzypczak was a Latin Catholic priest, and his beatification is an act of the Catholic Church. No source examined shows an Orthodox glorification, a place in an Orthodox synaxarion or an entry in an approved Eastern Catholic calendar. His June 12 memorial should not be described as a universal Byzantine Catholic feast.
Even so, his life touches themes that Eastern Christians know well. The Church has long honored martyrs who held fast to Christ under persecution, and Eastern Christians in Poland and the nearby lands also suffered during the Second World War. His reported forgiveness of his killers echoes the teaching of Christ that Eastern and Western Christians share.
Orthodox readers may study his life as part of the history of Christian suffering in Poland, without claiming that any Orthodox church has glorified him. Eastern Catholic readers may honor him as a martyr of the wider Catholic communion. In both cases the honest approach is to admire the witness and to be clear about the limits of his formal recognition.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ask His Prayers
Blessed Marian offers the example of a young priest who felt fear and stayed with his people. If you wish to ask his prayers for courage and faithfulness under pressure, you may keep his prayer card where you pray.
View Prayer Card