1947 - Leonides Bruns

October 25, 1947

Hengshui, Shanxi

Leonides Bruns was a Dutch Franciscan missionary, working in southern Shanxi Province. Born at Amsterdam in 1912, Bruns put his trust in Christ at a young age. He was ordained a priest in 1937 and went to China in December the following year.

On October 4, 1947, Bruns celebrated a feast with his fellow Franciscan missionaries at Jiangzhou. He returned to his own mission unaware that the Communists had already made plans to kill him. On October 14th he was arrested and charged with being a spy. Bruns objected, declaring he had never violated the laws of China or his home country. The judges were unimpressed and had him bound and incarcerated in a small cell next to the courtroom inside the Hengshui Prison. Bruns could hear all the court proceedings through the flimsy walls and heard his own death sentence announced.

From the time he was a boy back in his native Netherlands, Leonides Bruns had put his faith in Christ and his hope in eternal life. The news of his impending death did not cause him any visible anxiety. The first thing he did after hearing the news was call for the boy who brought his breakfast. He ate heartily, showing no sign of fear.

At noon his hands and feet were bound and Bruns was taken to the marketplace in the center of Hengshui. A large crowd watched as the Dutchman was raised up onto a special platform. Bruns was urged to confess his “crimes against the people.” When he failed to do so, guards beat him and stripped him nearly naked. Bruns then started to remove his socks and shoes. The judges told him it wasn’t necessary, but missionary replied, “I want to take them off. I want to die as poor as my Lord upon the Cross.”[1] The people near the platform were invited to beat the kneeling priest with sticks. Leonides Bruns

“remained in a posture of prayer until the blows forced him to fall flat; at that point he cried out, ‘My Lord, quickly, quickly, take my soul to you.’

The Communists assumed that the priest was dead and went on to the execution of six other prisoners, one of them a woman. Then it was discovered that Father Bruns still breathed; his body was stabbed with a bayonet and, when he was surely dead, his heart was hacked out of his body and his head cut off.”[2]

Another account of Bruns’ martyrdom stated:

“Fanatics rushed upon Father Bruns, kicking him and beating him. They threw him down from the platform on which he had been made to stand during his trial, and began to strip off his robes. Father Bruns calmly assisted them, by taking off his own shoes and stockings, with the words: ‘I am quite willing to die poor and naked as did Christ my Master.’ At a sign from the Communists the full fury of the crowd was unleashed. Stunned by blows, pierced through by bayonets, the missionary was finally torn to pieces in their midst.”[3]

Leonides Bruns went to heaven at the age of 35.