September 20

John Coleridge Patterson, pastor, and companions (d. 1871) martyrs

John Coleridge Patteson and his fellow missionaries were martyred in 1871 as they disembarked on the Melanesian island of Nukapu.

John Coleridge Patterson, pastor, and companions (d. 1871) martyrs

John Coleridge Patteson and his fellow missionaries were martyred in 1871 as they disembarked on the Melanesian island of Nukapu.
Patteson was born in London in 1827. As a student at Eaton College, he was influenced by George Augustus Selwyn, New Zealand's first bishop, who promoted an evangelization that was fully respectful of Maori culture and the rights of Melanesian natives.
After Patteson was ordained a priest in 1855, he left England and founded the Melanesian Mission. He was elected as first bishop of the archipelago, and immediately began to train an indigenous clergy and catechists. His methods were effective, and Christianity spread rapidly through the Pacific Islands.
Patteson's worst struggles were with European slave traders, who made many expeditions to Melanesia in those years. One day, as he and his companions reached the shore of a new island, they were mistaken for the traders whose presence in Melanesia they had long protested, and were savagely killed.
Today the churches of the Anglican Communion commemorate all of the martyrs of the Australia and Pacific missions.

 

BIBLICAL READINGS

2 Chr 24:17-21; Acts 7:55-60; Mk 8:31-35

 

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THE CHURCHES REMEMBER...

ANGLICANS:
John Coleridge Patteson, first bishop of Melanesia, and companions, martyrs

WESTERN CATHOLICS:
Robert Bellarmine (d. 1621), bishop and doctor of the church (Ambrosian calendar)
Candida of Carthage (3rd-4th cent.?), virgin and martyr (Spanish-Mozarabic calendar)

COPTS AND ETHIOPIANS (10 tút/maskaram):
Birth of the Virgin (Coptic Church; see on September 8)
Miracle of the Virgin at Saidnaya (Ethiopian Church)

LUTHERANS:
Carl Heinrich Rappard (d. 1909), evangelist in Switzerland

MARONITES:
Eusthatius and his relatives (2nd cent.), martyrs

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS AND GREEK CATHOLICS:
Eusthatius, megalomartyr, and his relatives