BEYZYM, JAN. – Polish Jesuit, missionary, and victim of charity, b. at Beyzym in Pedolia on 15 May 1850; he entered the novitiate at Staravies on 11 Dec. 1872 and was ordained a priest at Cracow on 26 June 1881. In 1897, he felt irresistibly drawn to the apostolate among lepers: having offered himself for Mangalore, he landed in Madagascar in 1898, where he initially took charge of the government leprosarium at Ambohivoroka. He then wished to found a leprosarium of his own for the mission, at Marana (near Fianarantsoa), with alms received largely from Poland. Shortly after its inauguration (1911), he died there of exhaustion (2 Oct. 1912), having already contracted the terrible disease.
BIBL.: M. Czerminski, Un volontaire de la libre, le p. B., Tolosa 1931 (in Polish, Cracow 1913). Edmondo Lamalle