1900 - Andreas Bauer

July 9, 1900

Taiyuan, Shanxi

Andreas Bauer. [CRBC]

Andreas Bauer was born on November 24, 1866, at Alsace in France. As a teenager he joined the Franciscan Order, joining the religious community in England, where he had gone on compulsory French military service. When his time of military service concluded, Bauer returned to church work and also studied to be a surgeon. He later contacted Bishop Fogolla, who influenced him to become a missionary to China.

Andreas Bauer arrived at Taiyuan in Shanxi Province on May 4, 1899. He was given the responsibility of managing the lay personnel at the mission station and he also performed surgeries at the mission hospital. Although he had been in China only one year, Bauer was calm and fearless after the Boxers seized him. He felt that his coming to China was worthwhile, despite the shortness of his ministry there. Not long before his martyrdom, Bauer had written to his brother, “We are at the dawn of a new century. I do not know what is in store for us. Oh! If only I too, like the good thief, could reach Paradise!”[1]

On July 9th, in the courtyard of the governor’s palace in Taiyuan, a soldier ordered Bauer to stretch out his hands so he could bind them. The 33-year-old Frenchman “knelt down, kissed the chains, and went singing to the place of execution.”[2]