1900 - Elias Facchini

1900 - Elias Facchini

July 9, 1900

Taiyuan, Shanxi

Elias Facchini. [CRBC]

Elias Facchini was born at Reno Centese, in the Italian province of Ferrara, on July 2, 1839. One account of his childhood said:

“In character, he was somewhat like his namesake, the Prophet Elias [Elijah], rough but strong, incapable of compromise…. The foundations of this moral nobility, which led him to martyrdom, were laid in the solitude and silence of the novitiate at the Friary of Le Grazie, Rimini.”[1]

At the age of 25 Facchini completed his intensive studies and was ordained into the Franciscan Order. A Bishop, Luigi Canali, said that Elias Facchini was “of sound morals and sacred virtues, a model of the true Franciscan apostle and worthy to die for Christ.”[2] Facchini was content to spend the rest of his life ministering in Italy, but when the government suppressed religious institutions in 1866, he applied to join the mission in China. After undergoing further training in Rome, Facchini arrived in Shanxi in April 1868, where he joined in the work around Datong in the north of the province.

Facchini was later transferred to Taiyuan and was handed the leadership of the seminary. He taught theology and literature, and also compiled a large Latin-Chinese dictionary. For the next three decades Facchini laboured tirelessly on behalf of the Chinese Catholic Church. As a theologian and author “he taught and formed a whole generation of indigenous priests, who later, in the hour of trial, proved they were worthy of their teacher, some of them offering their lives for their faith.”[3]

At the beginning of 1900, Facchini (then in his 60s) seemed to anticipate his imminent martyrdom. He told his colleagues, “If they kill me, I will get to heaven all the sooner. My body is already worn out. I will thank the Lord if I have to die for the faith.”[4]

When he was arrested on July 5th, the Boxers threatened Facchini with death unless he renounced his faith. He defiantly declared, “My faith is of steel; it may bend, but it does not break.”[5] Elias Facchini and the other Taiyuan missionaries were taken before hundreds of local people who shouted, “Kill them, kill them!” One stirring account says,

“The soldiers began their slaughter, dealing blows right and left, cruelly injuring their victims before giving the final stroke. Father Elias, aged sixty-one years, received more than one hundred sword cuts and at each lifted his eyes to heaven saying: ‘I go to Heaven.’”[6]

© This article is an extract from Paul Hattaway's epic 656-page China’s Book of Martyrs, which profiles more than 1,000 Christian martyrs in China since AD 845, accompanied by over 500 photos. You can order this or many other China books and e-books here.

1. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 100.
2. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 101.
3. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 101.
4. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 101.
5. “The Martyrs of China 1648-1930,” Tripod, 45.
6. Life of Mother Marie-Hermine, 62-63.

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