Saints of the Boxer Rebellion

  • chinesemartyrs.jpg

    We’re exper­i­ment­ing dur­ing Orthros with includ­ing read­ings from the Menolo­gian about the saints of the day, and since I think it isn’t the norm, peo­ple may not have got­ten to hear this this morn­ing. It touched my heart.

    On this day we com­mem­o­rate the Holy Sacred-Martyr Metróphanes Tsi-Chung, Priest of the Ortho­dox Mis­sion in Peking; his wife Tatiana and their sons Esa­ias and John; Maria, the betrothed of Esa­ias; Paul Wan, Mis­sion cat­e­chist; Ia Wen, teacher at the Mis­sion School; Matthew Hai Tsuan and his brother Vitus; Clement Kui Kin; Anna Chui; and two hun­dred and eleven other holy Mar­tyrs with them that were slain by the god­less in the year 1900 dur­ing the Boxer Rebel­lion in China.

    The Holy Mar­tyrs of China were native Chi­nese Ortho­dox Chris­tians brought up in piety at the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Mis­sion in Peking, which had been founded in 1685. Dur­ing the Boxer Rebel­lion of 1900 against the for­eign pow­ers occu­py­ing China, native Chi­nese Chris­tians were com­manded by the Box­ers to renounce Chris­tian­ity or be tor­tured to death. Two hun­dred and twenty-two mem­bers of the Peking Mis­sion, led by their priest Metróphanes Tsi-Chung and his fam­ily, refused to deny Christ and were deemed wor­thy of a mar­tyric death.

    On the tenth Christ’s Table was adorned with the finest of China.

    Curi­ous, I thought, for this read­ing to end in the last sen­tence with a sort of pun on the word ‘China.’ But then, even for this writ­ing, which must be of rel­a­tively recent ori­gin, there is a pre­scripted kind of poetry to even the most ter­ri­ble events. And this double-meaning seems to be picked up in the short tropar­ion included for these saints:

    When baked in the mys­ti­cal fur­nace of tor­ments,
    Your clay was trans­formed into ves­sels of glory.

    May their mem­ory be eternal.


    Related posts:

    1. Read­ing the lives of the saints
    2. Cra­dle and con­vert Orthodox
    3. Chris­tus Resurrexit!
    4. Gun­point conversion
    5. A Vic­to­rian take on the Ortho­dox Church

    June 10th, 2007 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Cather­ine K. 06.10.2007

    This is a good idea. We read from the Synaxar­ion dur­ing the Canon for a Fes­tal Vigil, and for a usual week­end we read it at the end of Great Vespers.

    It’s good to read/listen to the Lives of the Saints — how­ever and when­ever we do it.

  • dilys

    icon of the mar­tyrs: http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Image:ChineseMartyrs.…

  • Grace

    Cather­ine,

    Yes, I like those read­ings as well. There are some real sur­prises in there.

  • Grace

    Dilys,
    I thought that was such a lovely icon I added it into the post. Thank you!

  • Mimi

    At a local mis­sion (not my nor­mal church) dur­ing Ves­pers the priest reads from the Pro­logue, I think it’s neat.

    I also get it emailed to me, so I read it often.

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