Dr Sarah Byrne-Martelli is a Board-Certified Palliative Care and Hospice chaplain with over two decades of experience providing spiritual care to those facing serious illness and grief. She is the author of Memory Eternal: Living with Grief as Orthodox Christians (Ancient Faith, 2022) and is endorsed as a chaplain by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.
Dr Byrne-Martelli serves as Assistant Professor of Spiritual Care for the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. She is also a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care, where she conducts funded research on the integration of spiritual care in Palliative Care. She is a sought-after speaker and leads national parish workshops on spiritual care, lay ministries, and grief support. She also co-hosted the Ancient Faith podcast The Wounded Healer: Visiting Christ, Visiting the Sick, Visiting Ourselves and serves on the Board of the Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology, and Religion (OCAMPR).
She holds a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) from St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from Harvard Divinity School. Dr Byrne-Martelli attends St Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA, with her husband, Dr Peter Martelli, and their son, Rafael.
