John Alcober (Spanish: Juan Alcober Figuera, Chinese name: 费若望; 1694 – October 28, 1748) was a Spanish Dominican

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

and missionary in China during the 18th century. He died in 1748 and was ultimately

canonized Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of sa ...

Life

Alcober was born in

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

on December 31, 1694. His father and mother were Francis Alcober and Vincenta Figueras. He joined the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

in Spain and entered the Royal Priory of the Holy Cross in Granada in 1708. He was ordained in 1718 and served as a priest in Lorca. In 1725, he left Spain and travelled to the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

as a missionary. He initially served the Dominican church in Binondo and later went to a parish that served Chinese Catholics. At this church he learned Chinese language and Chinese culture. In 1728, he went to China with Francis Serrano and served as a missionary first in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

and later in

Fu'an (; Foochow Romanized: Hók-ăng-chê; sometimes ''Fu An'') is a county-level city of Ningde prefecture level city, in northeast Fujian province, PRC, some North of the provincial capital Fuzhou. Fuzhou and Fu'an of Ningde prefecture along with Ca ...

. Like other missionaries in China during this time he had to evade the authorities, since his missionary work was illegal. He was eventually captured. In 1747, he wrote a letter to the Dominican Provincial detailing his persecutions:

On 26 June 1746, between eleven and twelve o’clock at night, about 100 soldiers attacked my house. They took me and tied a whip of leather very tightly around my neck. Then they dragged me to the river near the town of Moyang. The Mandarin of the city was there and ordered them to untie me. From there, they took me to the house where the Venerable Martyr Peter Sanz used to live. At sunrise, they transferred me to the city of Fogan. ... On the 27, they brought me to the tribunal where they asked me innumerable questions. In this manner, I spent several days suffering what you cannot imagine. The Christians were frightened and many of them fled to the mountains or hid wherever they could.

His captors branded the characters "囚犯" ("Criminal") on his face. He and several other Dominicans were executed on October 28, 1748 in

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

. He was killed by strangulation.

Canonization

He was beatified on May 14, 1893, by

Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the Ap ...

and canonized along with other martyrs of China on October 1, 2000, by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcober, John 1748 deaths 18th-century executions by China Dominican martyrs Roman Catholic missionaries in China Spanish missionaries in China 18th-century Roman Catholic martyrs 1694 births