This week in Christian history: Fatima vision, first Chinese Protestant baptized

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 09, 2023

Martyrs of Gorkum – July 9, 1572

A 19th century depiction of the Martyrs of Gorkum, a group of Catholic priests who were executed by Dutch Protestants in 1572. | Wikimedia Commons

Correction Appended

This week marks the anniversary of when 19 Catholic priests were executed for their faith by a group of Protestants in the Netherlands during the war for Dutch independence from Spain.

The month before, a group of Dutch sailors known as the Sea Beggars invaded Gorkum — a Dutch town sometimes spelled Gorcum — and captured a group of Catholic laity and clergy.

After letting the lay Catholics go, the Sea Beggars kept the priests captive and, against the wishes of many other Dutch Protestants, opted to execute 19 of the 21 clergy they had seized, while the remaining two recanted Catholicism to have their lives spared.

“Because the legs and arms of the victims were not tied and the ropes were carelessly placed, their deaths were slow,” noted the Christian History Institute. “Accounts of the martyrdom say that the soldiers mutilated the bodies. The next day, they flung them into trenches for burial.”

Correction: When it was published on July 9, 2023, this entry implied that the Martyrs of Gorkum were executed at Gorkum, when they were actually killed elsewhere. The title and the photo caption have been changed to reflect this.