Abstract

The article deals with the fate of Fr. Protopriest Lt Col Szymon Fedoronko, who was was an Orthodox military chaplain in the reborn Polish Army. Th e priest has gone down in the history of the Orthodox Church and the armed forces of the Second Republic. Based on archival sources, the Author discusses the successive stages of his pastoral ministry in the army beginning with the head of the military chaplaincy in Przemysl and Lublin through the Orthodox chief chaplain in the Polish Army to his martyrdom in Soviet imprisonment. His life’s path as a soldier and priest is presented against the background of the political events that were taking place in the country at the time. The author shows, among other things, the most important problems the chaplain had to face working in an ethnically and religiously mixed area.