2019 will be the Year of St. Melchior Grodziecki in the Silesian province. This form of commemoration of the seventeenth-century martyr associated with Cieszyn Silesia, who died for his faith, was agreed by the councillors gathered almost unanimously during the session of the Assembly of the Silesian province in Katowice.

Melchior Grodziecki was born in 1584 in Cieszyn. He belonged to the Grodziecki family, coat of arms Radwan. At the beginning of the 16th century his ancestors moved to the Duchy of Cieszyn and settled in the castle in Grodziec. His grandfather and father were castellans of Cieszyn. Melchior studied at the Jesuit college in Vienna and then in Brno, where he joined the Jesuit novitiate. He stayed in the Jesuit convents in Kłodzko, České Budějovice and Prague, where he was ordained a priest in 1614 and later became a youth educator. After his solemn vows in 1619, the Order directed him to Košice, where he became chaplain of the imperial army. Apart from him, two other Jesuits – the Hungarian, Stefan Pongracz and the Croatian, Marek Križ - canon of the Cathedral of the Primate of Hungary in Ostrzyhom - also fulfilled this mission. All three suffered martyrdom at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War in September 1619 by soldiers of the Duke of Transylvania, Bethlen Gabor, commanded by General Juraj Rakoczi.

The martyr was elevated to the altar by Pope Pius X in 1905. The canonization was conducted by John Paul II during his apostolic visit to Košice on July 2, 1995.