1748 - Juan Alcober

October 28, 1748

Fuzhou, Fujian

Juan Alcober.

Born in Granada, Spain, in 1694, Juan Alcober (also known as Juan Alcobel Figuera) joined the Dominican Order when he was aged just 13. In 1718, after ten years of study, Alcober was ordained a priest. The Dominicans at the time were responsible for Catholic work in the Philippines, and many priests were sent to those islands to propagate the gospel. Alcober arrived in the Philippines in 1725.

To start with Alcober was assigned to a pastoral ministry among Chinese immigrants in the town of Binondo. This work allowed him to study Chinese and prepare for a ministry in China, which he commenced in 1728 at the age of 33. Most of the Chinese immigrants in the Philippines spoke the various Min Chinese dialects of Fujian Province, so he soon found himself at home in the coastal province.

After the edict against Christianity the situation became dangerous for Alcober and his fellow missionaries. Chinese believers courageously sheltered him in their homes, and he moved about from one place to another to evade detection. On one occasion soldiers were closing in on a village where Alcober was hiding, so an ingenious plan was devised to place him inside a coffin and stage a mock funeral. The ‘mourners’ carried the coffin to safety right through the lines of the unsuspecting soldiers.

On another occasion Alcober was disguised as a peasant water-seller, which enabled him to travel from village to village encouraging the believers. Troops came to the place where he was hiding, so he climbed into a tree. As the night wore on, Alcober realized he would need to spend the whole night in the tree. When the missionary quietly said his evening prayer he was surprised to hear someone else praying. His friend Francis Serrano was hiding on a different limb in the same tree!

Finally Alcober was discovered and was sent to prison in Fuzhou on June 26, 1746. He was tortured mercilessly, and hoped death would come quickly. As Alcober awaited his sentence he wrote, “Expectantes beatam spem et adventum gloriae magni Dei” (Awaiting the blessed hope and the coming glory of our Mighty God).

For more than two years this humble Spanish priest was cruelly incarcerated, until the sentence of death by strangulation was carried out on October 28, 1748. He died alongside his Spanish compatriot Francis Diaz. Later, one of their executioners described the martyrdoms of Alcober and Diaz:

“When I received the order to kill the two Europeans, Alcober and Diaz, I called two guards and my brother to help me carry it out. As we approached them, we saw them praying. They urged us to follow the law of God. We tied a rope around their necks and began to spin them around until they strangled to death. They died praying, welcoming death peacefully.”[1]