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Religious, priest and martyr | |
---|---|
Born | Melveren |
Died | 9 July 1572 Brielle, Spanish Netherlands |
Beatified | 14 November 1675 by Pope Clement X |
Canonized | 29 June 1865 by Pope Pius IX |
Major shrine | Brielle, South Holland, Netherlands |
Feast | 9 July |
Godfried Coart {Godfried van Melveren} (Melveren, 1512 - Den Briel, July 9, 1572) was a Franciscan friar and one of the martyrs of Gorkum. He is honored as the first canonized saint of Belgium.
Godfried Coart was born in a house on the Keelstraat in Melveren in 1512 and baptized in Holy Trinity Church. After completing studies at the Franciscan college at 's-Hertogenbosch, he was ordained a priest. He served as sacristan and confessor at the Franciscan friary in Gorinchem where he was very popular with the local people. He printed pictures of the saints that he distributed. He also painted. [1]
During the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, inhabitants of the northern Netherlands who were primarily Protestant began to turn against the Catholic priests and monastics present. [2] On June 26, 1572, Father Nicolaes Pieck, guardian of the Franciscan monastery of Gorcum, gave permission to those who wished to do so to seek safer havens. Only two fathers did so. The next day Protestant rebels, the Watergeuzen {pirates) seized Gorinchem and captured eleven Franciscans, along with other religious. The clergy were especially targeted by the Geuzen.
After about ten days imprisonment, they were transferred to Brielle [3] where they were offered their freedom in return for denying Catholic teaching on the Eucharist and papal primacy. Four of the twenty-three captives did so. [4]
Their fate was set. Despite a letter from the Prince of Orange, William the Silent, which enjoined all those in authority to leave priests and religious unmolested, they were subjected to a mock trial, and on July 9, 1572 hanged in a turfshed at a burned out monastery in nearby Rugge. [1] With the rope around his neck, Friar Godfried forgave his killers. [2] Their bodies were mutilated before or after death and buried in a ditch until they were translated to the Franciscan church in Brussels in 1616.
Godfried and the other Martyrs of Gorcum were beatified in 1675 and canonized in 1867 as "Saint Nicholas Pieck and his companions". His feast day, with them, is July 9. For many years the place of their martyrdom in Brielle has been the scene of pilgrimages and processions. A reliquary of their remains is housed in the Church of Saint Nicholas, in Brussels. [5] There is a statue of Saint Godfried in St. Rumbold's Cathedral, Mechelen. [6] The Stieltjeskerk in Rotterdam was dedicated to the martyrs. It was closed and demolished in 1976.
The street where Melveren Castle stands has been renamed Sint-Godfriedstraat. Around 1700, a bluestone chapel in honor of Saint Godfried was erected at the corner of the Schoolstraat in Melveren. The chapel was later relocated to Sint-Godfriedstraat. [2]
In 1989, residents of Keelstraat installed a chapel along the meadow that used to border on Godfried's birthplace. An open-air mass used to be celebrated there annually on July 9, followed by a party for all present.
The Friars Minor Museum in Sint-Truiden holds a painting by Godfried.
After Godfried's martyrdom, the Coart family developed a particular reverence for him. Since then, the family father has always been given the first name Godfried.
Year 1572 (MDLXXII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Maximilian Maria Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II. He had been active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, operating an amateur-radio station (SP3RN), and founding or running several other organizations and publications.
Brielle, also called Den Briel in Dutch and Brill in English, is a town and historic seaport in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland, on the north side of the island of Voorne-Putten, at the mouth of the New Maas. The former municipality covered an area of 31.14 km2 (12.02 sq mi) of which 3.59 km2 (1.39 sq mi) was water. In 2021 its population was 17,439.
Gorinchem, also spelled Gorkum, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of 21.93 km2 (8.47 sq mi) of which 3.10 km2 (1.20 sq mi) is water. It had a population of 37,410 in 2021.
William II de la Marck was the Lord of Lumey and initially admiral of the Watergeuzen, the so-called 'sea beggars' who fought in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), together with among others William the Silent, Prince of Orange-Nassau. He was the great-grandson of an equally notorious character, baron William de la Marck, nicknamed the "wild boar of the Ardennes".
John of Cologne, was a friar and priest of the Dominican Order, born in the Electorate of Cologne, part of modern Germany. He later became a parish priest of Hoornaar, in the Spanish Netherlands. He was executed for his faith in 1572 and has been declared a martyr and saint by the Catholic Church.
John Jones, also known as John Buckley, John Griffith, Godfrey Maurice, or Griffith Jones was a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest, and martyr. He was born at Clynnog Fawr, Caernarfonshire (Gwynedd), Wales, and was executed 12 July 1598 at Southwark, England. He is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
The Martyrs of Gorkum were a group of 19 Dutch Catholic clerics, secular and religious, who were hanged on 9 July 1572 in the town of Brielle by militant Dutch Calvinists during the 16th-century religious wars—specifically, the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, which developed into the Eighty Years' War.
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Nicholas Pieck, O.F.M., "Nicolaas" or "Claes Pieck" in Dutch, was a Franciscan friar who was one of a group of Catholic clergy and lay brothers, the Martyrs of Gorkum, who were executed for refusal to renounce their faith in 1572.
Willem Hessels van Est, Latinized as Estius, was a Dutch Catholic commentator on the Pauline epistles.
This page is an index of lists of people considered martyrs. A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party. This refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of the martyr by the oppressor.
Gregory Mary Grassi, O.F.M., was an Italian Franciscan friar and bishop who is honored as a Catholic martyr and saint.
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The Three Martyrs of Chimbote were a group of two Polish Franciscan priests and one Italian missionary priest murdered in Peru in 1991 by the Shining Path communist guerillas. Michał Tomaszek and Zbigniew Adam Strzałkowski, and Alessandro Dordi were murdered on 9 August and 25 August 1991 respectively.
Anthony of Weert was a Franciscan friar and priest who was martyred during the Dutch Revolt. Eighteen other men were martyred alongside him; they are known as the Martyrs of Gorkum.
Andrew Wouters was a Dutch Catholic priest who served as pastor in Heinenoord, Hoeksche Waard. He was among the 19 Martyrs of Gorkum in 1572.
The Martyrs of Alkmaar were a group of 5 Dutch Catholic clerics, secular and religious, who were hanged on 24 June 1572 in the town of Alkmaar by militant Dutch Calvinists during the 16th-century religious wars—specifically, the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, which developed into the Eighty Years' War. These atrocities were inflicted by the Calvinist leader, Diederik Sonoy.
The Martyrs of Roermond were a group of 13 Dutch Catholic clerics, secular and religious, who were murdered on 23 July 1572 in the town of Roermond by militant Dutch Calvinists during the 16th-century religious wars—specifically, the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, which developed into the Eighty Years' War.