The Christian martyrs of the 1622 Great Genna Martyrdom; 17th-century Japanese painting A martyr (Greek: μάρτυς, mártys, 'witness' stem μαρτυρ-, martyr-) is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In colloquial usage, the term can also refer to any person who suffe