Original scientific paper
IN THE QUEST FOR GLORY OF MARTYRDOM? ST. NICHOLAS TAVELIĆ AND THE MARTYR MOVEMENT IN CÓRDOBA – SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
Ivan JURKOVIĆ
Abstract
»Are you the sane men or lunatics? Who sent you? Maybe the pope or a Christian king?« asked qadi of Jerusalem four Franciscans in 1391 at the fourth day of the kurban bayram feast. Franciscans led by Nicholas Tavelić responded that they were in their right mind and
that »Nobody sent us but God himself, who condescend to inspire us so that we announce to you the Truth and yours salvation because Christ says in the Gospel ’He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned’ (Mk; 16, 16)«.
The qadi then suggested to Franciscans the cancellation of their speech and offered the conversion to Islam as the only way for them how to avoid the capital punishment. When Nicholas and his brothers firmly refused qadi’s proposals, he ordered them jailed and sent
word of the incident to the amir of Gaza. After three days of horrible torture in the prison they were carried before the amir who arrived that day (14th November) from Gaza. They again confirmed in a decisive manner their statements whereupon the amir had ratified
qadi’s death sentence and left them to the furious Muslim crowd which cut them in pieces. This description of the friars’ public anti-Muslim commencement and after that the pattern of arrest, trial, and execution reminds on the similar cases of martyrdom from that of Roman times and especially from that of, so called, 9th Century Córdoban martyrs’ movement. One of the basic suspicious similarities regarding the martyrdoms of the Roman period, those taking place in Córdoba and this in Jerusalem is that the Roman government actively sought out and persecuted Christians, while Córdoban Christians and Jerusalem’s friars generally were executed only after drawing attention to themselves. Thus, the question of intentional martyrdom is the crucial question which appeared already at the time of early Christian Church.
Keywords
St. Nicholas Tavelić; st. Eulogius; valid martyrdom; Jerusalem; Córdoba
Hrčak ID:
116093
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2013.
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