BEYZYM, JAN

BEYZYM, JAN. – Polish Jesuit, missionary, and victim of charity, born in Beyzym in Podolia on 15 May 1850, entered the novitiate at Staravies on 11 December 1872, ordained priest in Cracow on 26 June 1881. In 1897, he felt irresistibly drawn to the apostolate among lepers: having offered himself for Mangalore, he disembarked in 1898 in Madagascar, where he first took charge of the government leper asylum at Ambohivoroka. He then wished to found a leper asylum of his own for the mission, at Marana (near Fianarantsoa), largely through alms received from Poland. Shortly after its inauguration (1911), he died there of privation on 2 October 1912, having already contracted the terrible disease.