The martyrdom of Dionysius and Redemptus at Atjeh on 29 November 1638 was the execution, on the sea-shore of Atjeh, of the Carmelite priest Pater Dionysius of the Nativity (born Petrus Berthelot) and the lay brother Brother Redemptus à Cruce — together with the rest of the company of the Portuguese embassy of Francisco de Sosa de Castro to the newly chosen sultan of Atjeh, saving only the envoy himself — by pijlsehoten (“arrow-shots” or “bullet-shots”) and krissteken (“kris-stabs”) of the Atjehnese executioners. The martyrdom is the principal seventeenth-century European clerical martyrdom on Atjehnese soil documented in the Catholic mission record, and the only formally beatified Catholic martyrdom associated with the sultanate of Acheh — the two martyrs were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 25 March 1900, and their feast is kept on 29 November.
The embassy of 1638
The embassy originated in the politics of the Portuguese Estado da Índia. A gezant van den onderkoning van Goa — an envoy of the Viceroy of Portuguese India at Goa — was to proceed to Atjeh to offer the homage of Portugal to the newly elected sultan of Atjeh. The envoy designated was Francisco de Sosa de Castro, who made his acceptance conditional on the appointment of Pater Dionysius — born Petrus Berthelot, a former navigator — as scheepshevelhebber (ship’s commander) and confessor; and the lay brother Redemptus à Cruce volunteered to accompany the priest.
The embassy put to sea on 25 September 1638 from Goa on two warships (twee oorlogsbodems) carrying some seventy Portuguese, accompanied by the two Carmelites, two Franciscan fathers, and an indigenous priest (Inlandsch priester).
The sultan’s trap
Upon arrival at Atjeh, the embassy was destroyed by distrust. The source — the mission jubilee volume — records the immediate cause as “a slanderous report, as would this homage conceal only a cunning design directed against the independence of Atjeh and the power of the crescent” (een lasterlijk bericht, als zou dit huldebetoon slechts een listigen opzet verbergen, gericht tegen de onafhankelijkheid van Atjeh en de macht der halve maan). The sultan of Atjeh resolved “to meet craft with craft” (list tegenover list te stellen): he seized the entire crew and undertook to compel their apostasy from Christianity. The captives endured “the most shameful maltreatment” (de smadelijkste mishandelingen) with constancy. When they refused to renounce the Christian faith, they were condemned to death — all, that is, save the envoy himself.
The execution on the strand (29 November 1638)
The company — saving the envoy Sosa de Castro — was led to the sea-shore of Atjeh and made to kneel. There Father Dionysius addressed them:
“Al deze mannen zijn bereid met mij voor Jezus Christus te sterven. Sta mij toe de laatste te zijn en hun moed te zien.” — “All these men are ready to die with me for Jesus Christ. Allow me to be the last, and to see their courage.”
The Atjehners then opened fire. The first to fall — under the pijlsehoten and krissteken of the executioners — was Brother Redemptus; the last to sink was the courageous Father Dionysius. The grammatical detail of the source fixes the manner of execution as a hybrid of musketry and edged weapons, with the kris — the characteristic dagger of Atjehnese and Malay material culture — deployed in the act of execution by order of the sultan.
The date of the martyrdom — 29 November 1638 — is preserved in the Catholic martyrological record as the feast-day of the two Blesseds.
Beatification (1900) and cult
The holiness of their lives, the courage they displayed at their martyrdom, and the miracles that took place after their death moved the Pope, “after the required investigation” (na het vereischte onderzoek), to enroll them among the Blessed — “tot voorbeeld voor geloovigen en missionarissen in de belijdenis des geloofs, tot machtige voorpraak voor hen, die in deze Missie werken en lijden” (“as an example for believers and missionaries in the confession of the faith, and as a powerful intercessor for those who work and suffer in this Mission”). The beatification, by Pope Leo XIII, was pronounced on 25 March 1900, in the early months of the vicariate of Mgr. E. S. Luypen. The mission jubilee volume records the beatification among the principal events of Mgr. Luypen’s episcopate:
“De 25e Maart 1900 was een gedenkwaardige dag voor de geheele Missie van Ned. Oost-Indië. Twee helden, die hun bloed in deze Missie gestort hadden voor de verdediging van het geloof, werden door Z. H. Leo XIII zalig verklaard. ‘t Waren Pater Dionysius van de Geboorte en Broeder Redemptus van het H. Kruis, beiden Carmelieten.”
The feast of the two Blesseds is kept on 29 November — the day of their martyrdom.
Significance
The martyrdom is significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history on three counts. First, it is the principal seventeenth-century European clerical martyrdom on Atjehnese soil documented in the Catholic mission record — a document, on the Catholic side, of the early-modern Atjehnese capacity for the execution of foreign envoys on grounds of religion and sovereignty. Second, it fixes the sultanate of Acheh in the early seventeenth century — the period immediately following the *bloeitijdperk* of Sultan Iskandar Muda — as a Muslim power capable of repudiating a Portuguese embassy by the execution of its religious retinue, and it documents the use of the kris in the act of execution. Third, it is the only formally beatified Catholic martyrdom associated with the sultanate of Atjeh, and the only such event whose memory was formally institutionalised by the Catholic Church — through the beatification of 25 March 1900 and the annual feast of 29 November. The survival of the envoy Sosa de Castro is the only documentary anomaly of the event, and the source does not speculate on the reason — though it is presumably from his report that the European record of the martyrdom derives.
See Also
- Acheh
- Atjeh bloeitijdperk (1607-1636)
- Brother Redemptus à Cruce
- Carmelite Order
- Catholic Mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh
- E. S. Luypen
- Francisco de Sosa de Castro
- Goa
- Leo XIII
- Pater Dionysius of the Nativity
- Sultan of Acheh
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Sultanate of Acheh
- Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch Indië (1934)
- 1638
- 1900
- 25 March
- 25 September
- 29 November
Source
Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934 (Batavia: Algemeen Comité van Voorbereiding tot de Feestelijke Herdenking van 400 jaar Missie in Ned.-Indië, [1934]), pp. 54–55 (the 1638 embassy and martyrdom), p. 53 (the 1900 beatification).