Of the 120 Martyrs of China, 87 were Chinese nationals and 33 were foreign missionaries. They were executed during sporadic persecutions by warlords, local mandarins and provincial governors. The religiously motivated deaths occurred from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The martyrs were Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, brothers, seminarians, and lay women and men. They also represented several religious orders: Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Jesuits and Lazarists. When the martyrs were canonized in 2000, China’s Foreign Ministry condemned the action, saying some of the new saints had been accomplices of imperialists invading China and their canonization offended the Chinese people and government.
