Martyrdom: Why martyrs still matter

By CATHERINE PEPINSTER

Since the early days of Christianity, martyrdom has had a particularly honoured place, and 2020 will see the Catholic Church marking the fiftieth anniversary of the canonization of 40 martyrs killed during the Reformation in England and Wales.

In this powerful exploration of the significance of martyrdom today, Catherine Pepinster looks at the lives of over a dozen martyrs, past and present, to consider how ideas about giving up your life for your faith have changed over the centuries, and especially the way martyrs often become caught up in the clash between religion and politics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SPCK
• Release date: Oct 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9780281081660

CATHERINE PEPINSTER

Catherine Pepinster has been a journalist for 30 years, reaching the top of national newspapers and then becoming editor of the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, for 13 years. She is a well-known commentator and writer on religious affairs and is a regular contributor to the ‘Thought for the Day’ slot on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Since stepping down as editor of The Tablet, she has written on religion for many publications, including The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, the Religion News Service, the Church Times, the Catholic Herald and The Tablet. She regularly appears on Sky News and the BBC as a commentator. Her book, The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the papacy from John Paul II to Francis, was published by Bloomsbury in autumn 2017. Since leaving The Tablet, she has also worked for The Anglican Centre in Rome. Her work as a journalist, broadcaster and author, as well as her work for the Anglican Centre, means that she is already well known to people of influence in religious circles and to others interested in religion. As well as her journalistic skills, she brings academic rigour to her writing: she has an MA in philosophy and religion and spent six months at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, as a Visiting Scholar.

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‘In this moving, vivid and well-researched survey of the history and meanings of Christian martyrdom, Catherine Pepinster shows how martyrdom is not just about unimaginably courageous individuals – so often ordinary Christians uncomfortably like ourselves – but also about the hopes and prayers of the whole of Christ’s body. As such, it is a sign of healing and reconciliation; we see how the sacrificial love of the martyr reaches beyond any single cause or issue and embraces the world with Christ’s indiscriminate compassion.’

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

‘This engaging and inspiring book offers a panoramic study of Christian martyrdom in its history, motives, contexts and cultural representations, from the saints and martyrs of the early Church to the ecological martyrs of the twenty-first century. I highly recommend it.’

Professor Tina Beattie, author of Eve’s Pilgrimage

‘Harrowing, challenging, inspiring: this book is a formidable tour de force on the phenomenon of martyrdom.

The historical overview encompasses many examples of martyrdom through the centuries – from ancient Rome to contemporary massacres by Islamist jihadists. Its gripping account of the lives and deaths of individual martyrs documents the price of faith and the ideologies justifying the killings.

This compellingly readable book is a challenge to readers to respond individually, prayerfully and collectively to contemporary persecution. Now, more than any time in history, Christians in many countries are valiantly giving their lives on their front lines of faith and freedom. They need our support.

As St Paul wrote in his first letter to the church at Corinth, When one part of the body of Christ suffers, we all suffer, and as St Teresa of Avila reminds us, God has no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on the world. We are required not to look the other way.

The Rt Revd Benjamin Kwashi, in Jos in Nigeria’s Central Belt, where thousands of Christians have been slaughtered for their faith in recent years by Islamist terrorists, including Fulani herdsmen, challenged us: "If we have a faith worth living for, it is a faith worth dying for. Don’t you betray the faith we are living and dying for."

I pray that this superb book, with so much well-documented evidence and challenging personal histories, will inspire those of us who live in comfortable Christianity to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters – and, remembering that prayer without deeds is dead, we will support them in whatever ways God calls each of us to do.’

Baroness Caroline Cox, crossbench peer and CEO of the Humanitarian Aid and Relief Trust

‘What cause might be worth dying for? And, if you make the ultimate sacrifice, how many would conclude that you were right? Impeccably scholarly but also grippingly accessible, Catherine Pepinster’s history of martyrdom ranges from St Peter to suicide bombers. In one of many extraordinary scenes, a recent Archbishop of Canterbury overlaps with England’s oldest martyr and one of Latin America’s most recent. Meghan Markle also has a surprise walk-on. This is a compelling book about the theology and politics of those who – deliberately or accidentally – give their lives for their beliefs.’

Mark Lawson, broadcaster, arts journalist and author

‘A glorious book – subtle, inspiring, beautifully written and expertly researched – which will introduce martyrs and their stories to a new generation of readers. But Martyrdom is not simply a recitation of the martyrs’ tales, fascinating though they are. It is a profound look at the entire concept of martyrdom, now reclaimed for our time.’

James Martin SJ, author of My Life with the Saints

For

Sisters Bernadette Hunston and Letizia Hannon, SCSJA,

who first introduced me to Perpetua and Margaret Clitherow

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of plates

Introduction: Martyrdom – an overview

Part 1

CHRONOLOGY

1 Early Church – life (and death) under the Romans

2 Reformation – Christians at war

3 The twentieth century – a totalitarian, godless age

4 Today – when persecution goes global

Part 2

THEMES

5 Women – paying the price for making a choice

6 Race – for the sake of justice

7 Romero – the martyr who bridged a divide

8 Revival of the shrine – the power of pilgrimage

9 Patriotism – martyrdom and the ideals of the English

10 Patriotism – saving Poland’s soul

11 Acts of interpretation – culture and martyrdom

Conclusion: Martyrdom – a fluid, evolving idea

Notes

Bibliography

Search terms

Acknowledgements

The research for this book was begun at Durham University. I am grateful to the university and the staff of the Centre for Catholic Studies for the award of a Durham University Residential Research Library (RRL) Fellowship in 2018, without which I would have been unable to spend so much time absorbed in the documents, manuscripts and books necessary for my studies. I am particularly indebted to Professor Paul Murray, Dean of the Centre for Catholic Studies, Dr James Kelly, Sweeting Research Fellow in the History of Catholicism, who was responsible for the RRL fellowships, and Dr Jonathan Bush, archivist at Ushaw College, who enabled me to carry out my research.

Detailed conversations with others were especially helpful in writing this book, including Monsignor Philip Whitmore, Rector of the English College, Rome; Professor Tina Beattie; Bishop David Conner, Dean of Windsor; Professor Daniel McCarthy; Archbishop Bashar Warda, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, Iraq; Julian Filochowski; Dr John Hall, former Dean of Westminster; Dr Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans. I am also grateful to John Walsh for directing me to the work of Oscar Wilde, and Dom James Leachman OSB for his comments on the liturgy.

I am indebted to Clare Reihill of the T. S. Eliot Foundation, Faber & Faber and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for permission to quote the works of T. S. Eliot.

Conversations going back over many years and stored in a mental filing cabinet have led me this way and that in search of martyrs in buildings, books, plays and paintings. Among those who helped me to map my route are: Lord (David) Alton, Sally Axworthy, Francis Campbell, Father Matthew Cashmore, Paul Chandler, Father Anthony Currer, Elena Curti, Eamon Duffy, Sister Janet Fearns, Suzi Feay, Dr Claire Foster-Gilbert, Pauline Gilbertson, Dr Alana Harris, Dr James Hawkey, Tom Heneghan, Stephen Hough, Jim Hughes, Professor Werner G. Jeanrond, Veronica Lachkovic, Christopher Lamb, Monsignor Mark Langham, Jonathan Luxmoore, Father Robert McCulloch, Geoffrey Munn, Simon O’Hagan, Roxanna Panufnik, Father Keith Pecklers SJ, Susan Penswick, Dr Marcus Pound, James Roberts, Monsignor Roderick Strange, Marcus Tanner, Dr James Thomson, Sophie Treszka, Father Marcus Walker, Brendan Walsh, Michael Walsh, Raymond Whitaker and John Wilkins. John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need, and Anne and Patrick Martin were particularly helpful regarding the plight of persecuted Christians today. I have also been privileged to learn about and visit China with the help of the Bible Society, and owe thanks to two chief executives, James Catford and Paul Williams, and to the staff and trustees. My cousin, Barbara Jones, introduced me to Poland, and my other cousin, Caroline Ashley, accompanied me to Gdansk and to the unforgettable shrine to Father Jerzy Popiełuszko.

Special mention must be made of my editor at SPCK, Dr Rima Devereaux, who was always thoughtful and supportive.

This book was completed during weeks of lockdown caused by COVID-19. I owe a debt of gratitude to my husband Kevin, as always, and to my oncologist, Professor Justin Stebbing, for his care and advice at a time of difficulty for patients and all those working in the National Health Service.

Plates

Thomas More fell out with Henry VIII and was executed in 1535. Today he is admired as a man of conscience

Thomas Cranmer, perceived as a personal and theological enemy by the Catholic queen, Mary Tudor, but as a hero by Protestant reformers. Died at the stake in 1556

The canonization of the 40 Catholic martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI in 1970 was a time of great celebration for Catholics in the UK

Martin Luther King impressed the world with his call for racial justice and the power of his oratory

Romero bridges the Anglican-Catholic divide. The Dean of Westminster points out the statue of Oscar Romero above the great west door of Westminster Abbey to Pope Benedict XVI

The revival of martyrs’ shrines in the UK has inspired tourism and new pilgrimages, such as the annual event in St Albans

England and martyrdom. A wooden shield, bearing the initials of Charles I, linking him to the Order of the Garter and St George, kept in the Deanery at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle

St Sebastian, gay icon and one of the most popular martyrs with painters

Catherine of Alexandria is regularly painted by a wheel, the vehicle of her martyrdom

Sr Dorothy Stang, a twenty-first-century martyr for environmental justice

The martyr of Polish patriotism. The shrine to Fr Jerzy Popiełuszko, murdered in 1984

Introduction: Martyrdom – an overview

Two men, born 400 years apart. One, Edmund Campion, came into this world in 1540, the son of a London bookseller, and was brought up in the lee of St Paul’s Cathedral. Educated in Oxford, he later travelled and lived abroad in Rome, Prague and Moravia. At the time of his death, at the age of 41, when he was considered an enemy of the state, he said: ‘I am a Catholic man and a priest. In that faith have I lived and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then I am guilty.’¹

The other man, Adrian Elms, was born in 1964 in Kent, about 50 miles from Campion’s birthplace. After becoming a teacher, Elms too lived abroad – in his case, in Saudi Arabia, a place he later described to a former colleague as a ‘utopia’. In the weeks before he died, Elms told his children that he was ‘going to die fighting for God’.

The passionate language of both men has striking similarities: these highly religious individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves for God. And they are outlaws.

There the similarity ends. Campion spent his days preaching, hearing confessions and saying Mass. Elms had a long criminal record of violence before he converted to Islam in prison, taking the name Khalid Masood. His life ended on 22 March 2017 with a gunshot to the chest after he ploughed his hired car into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge and stabbed a police officer outside the House of Commons.

What is a martyr?

For generations, the idea of a martyr for most people in the West suggested someone of great courage who was personally peace-loving but willing to suffer persecution and oppression for his or her religious beliefs. In this version of martyrdom, while violence surrounded the martyr, the person at the centre is seen as the antithesis of it: a witness to faith who would endure physical force but not advocate it.

Since 9/11, that view has been tainted by events. Those who participated in the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 by flying planes into the Manhattan buildings and other American landmarks were hailed by Islamists as ‘martyrs’. The term was also used in the context of other incidents. On BBC2’s Newsnight programme in 2004, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, chair of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, said of Palestinian attacks on Israel: ‘I consider this type of martyrdom operation as an indication of the justice of Allah Almighty.’²

On 29 November 2019, two people died and three more were injured during an attack that began in the Fishmongers’ Hall in the City of London and ended on London Bridge. The assailant wore a hoax explosive device and was shot dead by the police. At the time, the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner, commented that attackers wear fake suicide vests to add to public panic and sometimes to ensure that police officers shoot them dead. To some attackers, he said, martyrdom is preferable to capture, trial and spending many years in prison.³

Others have protested that such use is a hijacking of the term ‘martyr’ and that Islamist attacks should not be seen as part of the history of martyrdom. President George W. Bush was emphatic. In talking about suicide bombers in the Middle East, he said they were not martyrs but murderers.⁴ However, it should be noted that many Muslims reject the activities of Islamists like Khalid Masood. Martyrdom is not central to Islam, although it is a component of it. The only clear allusion to martyrdom in the Qur’an is mention of shahid with reference to the Battle of Uhud, and was clearly linked to death in warfare, fighting the enemies of Islam.⁵

Christian ideas of martyrdom rule out death in battle and engagement in any form of aggression; no Roman Catholic would therefore advocate that Guido Fawkes should be considered a martyr for his death in 1605, although he was engaged in efforts to bring down a monarch opposed to the Catholic Church.

However, ruling out a willingness to engage in violence is not enough to provide a definition of martyrdom; nor does it sufficiently reflect the extent to which understanding of the term has changed over the years. Martyrdom has certainly captured the imagination of countless people down the centuries – and not only religious believers. Artists, playwrights and novelists have been fascinated by those individuals who have been willing to die for what they believed in. Unlike the famous character played by James Dean, these are rebels with causes, people with principles, those who cannot countenance going against their own conscience. While there are some secular figures who could be called ‘martyrs’ – people such as Alan Henning, a taxi driver cum humanitarian who was taken hostage and beheaded by Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 after delivering aid to Syria – the majority tend to be advocates of a particular faith. At times, the term has also been cheapened by its use in popular culture to denote anybody willing to stick up for his or her views. The Metric Martyrs were at one time a feature of British tabloid headlines, when the eponymous group, made up of intransigent market traders, refused to abide by European Union rules on weights and measures and instead stuck to weighing their bananas only in imperial pounds and ounces. Eventually, even the BBC used such terms in its headlines.⁶

Martyrdom for Christ

In this volume, I am focusing particularly on Christian martyrdom and the conflicts over belief that have led courageous individuals to their death. The writer Paul Middleton has suggested in a survey of martyrdom that its purpose is to give a religion a particular identity.⁷ While martyrs have, throughout Christian history, helped to shape the religion, through liturgy, worship and church buildings, their role has been more about reinforcing the values for which Christians stand – the values that, if challenged, would lead a believer to pay the ultimate price: his or her life.

Given that the reward for such a sacrifice is the martyr’s crown – in other words, the attainment of paradise – it could be argued that martyrdom focuses on the spiritual life. In fact, it highlights Christianity’s standing as very much a carnal, or corporeal, religion. This faith is as much about the body as the soul. It began with Christ taking on humanity – as the Word made flesh – and sacrificing his bodily life for the redemption of humanity. His followers are baptized – a bodily sign as well as a sacramental sign of their Christian beliefs – and some of them also sacrifice their bodily existence for the sake of Christ.

Early ideas of martyrdom

Physical self-sacrifice was part of Christian history from its earliest days. Although there were references in ancient Jewish texts to similar ideas, such as acts of resistance that led to death in the book of Maccabees, or themes of persecution and the transformation of victim into victor in the book of Daniel, martyrdom was a mostly unknown concept in Judaism.

Socrates has sometimes been described as a kind of martyr (more accurately, a scapegoat for Athens’ misfortunes), and indeed the word ‘martyr’ has its etymological origins in the Greek word for ‘witness’, but martyrdom itself was also unknown in the Ancient Greek world. Instead it seems to be something developed by Christianity. It was noted as early as the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the killing of Stephen, one of the deacons appointed by the apostles to distribute food and other aid to the poorest members of the early Church. He is stoned to death by people enraged at a speech in which he had castigated them for betraying Jesus.

While Stephen was attacked by local people in Jerusalem, it was the Romans who had put Jesus to death and it was they who were chiefly responsible for the early Christian martyrs. From the late first century until the early part of the fourth century, the leaders of the earliest Christian communities were arrested by the officials of the Roman Empire, who perceived this new religion (believed to have been founded in approximately

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33) as a threat to the Roman state. As befits a powerful empire, this persecution was systemic. After being arrested, Christians would be taken before the local magistrate and condemned to death – a sequence of events that, in many ways, mirrored the trial and execution of Jesus Christ. Unlike him, they would often be asked to make pagan sacrifices for the emperor and renounce their faith, and their executions would be showcased in public arenas rather than take place on a hill beyond the city limits.

While the Roman Empire took its toll on the early Church, it also shaped it. The killings of Christians were performances and even entertainments for the Romans, but they also provided this emerging religion with an elect, influenced by classical ideas of the noble death. The Romans saw death as a way of revealing character because of the manner in which a person faced his or her demise. The Christian adoption of this notion led to the distribution of early written accounts of the martyrs – something that the church leader Augustine wanted as a devotional alternative to the voyeurism of gladiator fights or criminal executions. In turn, the idea of the heroic martyr helped to create cults and inspired works of art.⁸

Relics

The deaths of believers had a role to play beyond providing examples of heroic sacrifice. Christians believed that martyrdom ensured eternal life in heaven – and so provided a link between heaven and earth. Martyrs could intercede with God on behalf of other Christians if prayers were made through them. This belief influenced the early liturgical calendars through commemorations or feast days. It widened the scope for appealing to God because help was at hand from the most blessed souls. Over the years, the veneration of martyrs and martyrdom sites led to the development of pilgrimages and the popularity of what in contemporary tourism parlance might be called ‘souvenirs’. Martyrdom created a kind of ecclesiastical economy.

This trend towards remembrance was evident very early on, as an account of Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, makes clear. Around

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156, his followers:

took up his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and deposited them in a suitable place. There, gathering together, as we are able with joy and gladness, the Lord will permit us to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom in commemoration of those who have already fought in the contest.⁹

That last remark suggested St Paul’s words: ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness’ (2 Timothy 4.7–8).

However, the contest was not entirely finished for, according to developing Christian teaching, the martyrs, though dead, could still be relied on to support other combatants. It was not only their prayers that were desirable; so too were their bodies. Unlike Jews, and pagan Greeks and Romans, the early Christians had no compunction about preserving the bodies of the dead. While other religions and cultures would honour the tombs of their heroes, the Christians put the corpses to good use. They turned them into relics that could help the faithful to keep fighting the contest.

It is not clear why this form of devotion developed in Christianity. Derek Krueger argued, at the time of a major exhibition of reliquaries and devotion in Europe:

That the bodies of the martyrs had already been sundered perhaps licenses further fragmentation . . . Popular piety about the holiness and efficacy of the bodies of the saints preceded attempts to provide a theological explanation, and already in the fourth century the idea that the corpses of Christian holy men and women were infused with spiritual power – that they were able to perform miracles or could function as conduits for God’s power to heal – had become a matter of common sense.¹⁰

As Christianity spread through the Roman Empire during the fourth century and beyond, following the conversion of the emperor Constantine, growing numbers of churches were built and many of them were dedicated to the martyrs whose relics they contained. Thus the cult of the martyrs first began to gain devotion.

Early sites of veneration

The influence of the martyrs was not, however, of equal importance throughout Christendom. It particularly affected the West through the creation of one of its greatest shrines, dedicated to Peter, apostle and first pope, in Rome. Quite how it did so can be illustrated by comparing St Peter’s Basilica to other major churches in Jerusalem and Istanbul (or Constantinople).

Although it is named after the burial place of Jesus, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has no human remains. Christians believe, after all, that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven afterwards. Jesus’ tomb had been dug into rock facing the rising sun. Emperor Constantine ordered a basilica to be built on the site with a central nave and four side aisles or naves. The facade of the basilica, like the mouth of the tomb, faced towards the rising sun, and the whole structure was aligned with the head of its apse facing across an open-air courtyard towards the empty tomb. The theology of this church is about remembering Christ’s glory rather than being a memorial of a sacrifice; it is as if the focus of this Christian faith is on the hope of a future already revealed.

In Constantinople, Hagia Sophia was built as a giant dome. There is no empty tomb, no martyrdom, no sacrifice. The focus here is on the Eucharist – a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

St Peter’s Basilica in Rome is altogether different. Here, Constantine built the original church around the grave of the apostle Peter, who was crucified in Rome.

The apse, a half-dome, centred on the grave of the apostle, was preserved by an encasement of marble slabs that stood nearly 2.75 metres (9 feet) tall. Early liturgies were celebrated in front of the encased grave. At the turn of the seventh century, Gregory the Great elevated the floor of the apse so that the top of the encasement could be made into the present altar, and a small window was cut into the encasement. Even today, it allows pilgrims access to the grave for venerating the saint whose bones remain there.

As Dom Daniel McCarthy OSB, Professor of Liturgy at Sant’Anselmo University, Rome, explained:

If you celebrate Mass at St Peter’s you contemplate the bones of a martyr and the crucifixion that took place nearby. We venerate Peter, whom we believe is in heaven, but his bones have to wait for the final resurrection of the body. This influenced other churches in Rome and so the impact of martyrdom has been profound in the Western Catholic tradition.¹¹

Martyrdom from the medieval era to the Reformation

By the medieval period, martyrdom was a powerful narrative in Christianity, with shrines to the martyrs flourishing. The resting place of Thomas Becket, killed in Canterbury Cathedral, quickly attracted substantial numbers of pilgrims after his canonization in 1173, just three years following his death at the hands of the knights of King Henry II.

By the thirteenth century, Becket’s was the most popular shrine in England and offerings made by pilgrims totalled an astonishing £1,000 a year. It was decorated to reinforce the story of his life and his sanctity, with stained-glass windows illustrating the tale for the illiterate. By the fifteenth century, annual offerings had fallen to £100 a year and the fashion in pilgrimage had declined. Rather, people sought to collect their own relics, no longer necessitating arduous and expensive travel. Yet relics continued to play a part in making churches holy places.

This helps to give us insight into the horror that many believers experienced when Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell ordered the sacking of churches in the 1500s. The tragedy of iconoclasm was not just about aesthetics, however regrettable it was to have statues, stained-glass windows and wall paintings destroyed. It was also about desecration, about the destruction of what helped to make a church a sacred space. The holy building was, of course, used for the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ, but it also provided a physical link with those who were closest to Christ, the martyrs. Even today, we see a distinction between what is precious and sacred to some but not so meaningful to others. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, when churches in the UK closed due to the government-imposed lockdown, the Roman Catholic bishops readily agreed that, if it was safe to do so, priests should still enter their churches to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass on the altars with their relics. At first, the Church of England told priests to be in solidarity with the rest of the country and remain completely in lockdown in their homes. For those of an evangelical bent, for whom Scripture was more the centre of their worship, holding a service in their kitchen was perfectly acceptable. High Anglicans, by contrast, were noticeably ill at ease in such a setting and yearned for the altar.

New kinds of martyr

While the iconoclasts of the Reformation had focused their attention on destroying the relics of past martyrs, it was an era when many other martyrs were created. Like those of the early Church, their deaths were caused by clashes between faith and earthly powers.

Many people make a connection between the medieval martyr Thomas Becket and the Tudor Thomas More, given that they were both once the favourites of their monarchs but fell out with them. There is, however, a distinct difference between them that illustrates how there are two different types of martyr who fall victim to the clashes between religious faith and the state. Becket was perceived not so much as