Jesuits Melchior Grodziecki, Istvan Pongracz, and Marko Krizin earned martyrdom at the hands of the Calvinists 400 years ago today.
A Pole, a Hungarian, and a Croat, respectively, they were emissaries of their vast polyglot empire’s official religion who were unlucky to be in the wrong place when theological differences went kinetic and helped launch the Thirty Years War.
That wrong place was the Hungarian city of Kassa (today the Slovakian city of Košice) which was captured by Protestant Transylvanian prince Gabriel Bethlen on September 5, 1619. Confined to the Jesuit residence, these three were assailed by a mob of soldiers who broke in on the morning of September 7 and demanded their immediate apostasy, putting them to summary torture and eventual beheading when they refused.
All three were canonized in the 20th century.
On this day..
- 1833: Nils Narumseie, terror of Kanten
- 1952: Mustafa Khamis and Muhammad al-Baqri, Egyptian labor activists
- 1960: George Scott
- 1736: Captain John Porteous, riotously lynched
- 1732: Pompey, poisoner of James Madison's grandfather
- 1914: Seven retreating Frenchmen, with surprising results
- 1849: Elisha Reese, suitor
- 1929: Constantine Beaver, Alaskan native
- 1768: Isaac Frasier, three strikes offender
- 2000: Lu Cheng, possible wrongful Taiwanese execution
- 1984: Ernest Dobbert, child abuser
- 1943: 186 prisoners at Plotzensee Prison