Archimandrite Innocent, head of the Orthodox Chinese Mission in the 1900s, wrote the following words:
The day of reckoning for most Orthodox Chinese was June 11, 1900. On the eve of that day leaflets were posted in the streets, calling for the massacre of the Christians and threatening anyone who would dare to shelter them with certain death. In the middle of the night gangs of Boxers with flaming torches spread over Beijing, attacking Christian houses, seizing Christians and forcing them to deny Christ.
This rebellion, known as the Boxer Rebellion, stemmed from an uprising against foreign influence and targeted both foreigners and Chinese converts to Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox). Dozens of Chinese Orthodox Christians fled for their lives and hid in the home of their priest, Father Mitrophan Tsi-Chung, where they were surrounded by armed bands and most of them were killed.
Saint Ia, head teacher at the Orthodox Mission School, was attacked and beaten nearly to the point of death, then buried alive. A non-Christian sympathetic to her suffering recovered her body and took her to his home, nursing her back to health. But others, finding out Ia was still alive, came to arrest and torture her again. Some say the Name of Christ was again on her lips as she died. For her double sufferings, St. Ia the Teacher is sometimes referred to as "Saint Ia the Twice-Martyred".
By the end of the uprising, 222 Orthodox Christians received the crown of martyrdom. Yet despite the violence of 1900, the Orthodox Church of China entered a period of new growth. By 1902 there were 32 Orthodox Churches along with schools and orphanages, and approximately 6,000 Orthodox faithful. The bodies of Father Mitrophan and the other Holy Chinese Martyrs were placed under the altar of a new church dedicated to their memory, built in 1906. A cross was erected on the site of their martyrdom, and the feast of the Chinese martyrs was first commemorated on June 10, 1903.
St. Ia and those who suffered with her are a witness to a faith which was worth more to them than any sufferings they might endure - and a hope in the resurrection which defeats the power of death, making it instead a doorway to life in Christ.
Holy Mother Ia and the New Martyrs of China, pray to God for us!
