1950 - Mathew Su

July 1950

Fanchang, Anhui

Mathew Su was born in a small village near the town of Wuhu in Anhui Province in 1920. Raised in a godly Catholic family, he made a firm commitment to Jesus Christ at an early age, dedicating himself to the service of the Lord. Spanish Jesuit priests of the Wuhu Mission educated Su in his formative years. He later attended the Catholic seminary at Xuancheng, graduating and being ordained in 1949, just prior to the founding of the People’s Republic of China. His first appointment was as parish priest of a church at Fanchang in southern Anhui Province, a short distance from where he had grown up.

Mathew Su’s life was forever altered in the summer of 1950, when he was arrested and thrown into prison for opposing the Communists’ establishment of a government-sanctioned Catholic church. The prison guards subjected him to lengthy interrogations throughout the nights, followed by remorseless physical labour under the hot sun during the daylight hours. Su’s captors used every tactic they knew to try to break down his will and make him an atheist, but no matter what they did he continued to trust in Christ. This infuriated the guards, so they refused to allow him to eat for a period of six days, sure that this would break his resistance.

During those six days without food, Mathew Su not only continued to trust in God, but he also took every opportunity to boldly proclaim the gospel to his fellow prisoners. At the end of the sixth day the guards offered him food on condition he stopped preaching. Mathew Su refused. The same day “he fell dangerously ill, and died very soon after, reciting the Apostles’ Creed in a loud voice. He was only 30.”[1]

The prison authorities and local government officials were afraid when Mathew Su died. They knew how popular he was with the other prisoners and feared they would riot, so they took his body away in the dark and buried it in wasteland. Su’s body was left to decay in an unmarked grave, but his spirit had already soared to the presence of the Almighty God whom he loved with all his heart.