Our Lady of Marrakech

Our Lady of Marrakech - The Holy Martyrs

Berardo and his four Franciscan companions, first martyrs of the Seraphic Order, beheaded on January 16, 1220

In January 1220, in the capital of the Almohade Empire, five Franciscan brothers were executed by order of the Sultan. They had crossed the Mediterranean with in their hearts the fire of the Gospel and the tenderness of the Virgin that Francis of Assisi had transmitted to them. His death was the first martyrdom blood of the Order founded just ten years earlier. Eight centuries later, the Church of the Holy Martyrs of Marrakech continues to guard its memory in the heart of the ancient medina, recalling that in those very streets where today the smells of the zoco and the sound of the alminars are mixed, there were men who chose to die rather than to silence the name of Jesus.

1. Marrakech under the pillows: the city of power and the sword

To understand the martyrdom of the five Franciscans it is necessary to understand what Marrakech was in 1220 and what the Almohade Empire represented in the 13th century world. The Almohades - al- Muwahhidun, "those who affirm the unity of God" - were a religious and political movement born in the 12th century in the mountains of the Moroccan Atlas under the preaching of Reformer Ibn Tumart. His doctrine was a version of Islam marked by theological rigorism and intolerance towards any form of religious pluralism.

When the Almohade Empire reached its maximum extent, it dominated from the Senegal River to the Spanish Mediterranean coast, with capital in Marrakech. Under his control, the MozArab communities - the Spanish-Roman Christians who had survived for centuries under Andalusian Islam - were forced to choose between conversion, exile or death. The Jewish communities were subjected to similar persecution. The famous philosopher Maimonides had to flee Córdoba to save his life. The relative tolerance that had characterized part of the previous period of Al-Ándalus was replaced by a policy of religious uniformity imposed by force.

In that context, Marrakech was the capital of a power that considered himself the guardian of the purest Islamic faith. The Almohades sultans - Abu Yusuf Yaqub al- Mansur was the most famous - had defeated the Christian kingdoms of the Peninsula in the battle of Alarcos (1195), although they were later defeated in the Saves of Tolosa (1212). By 1220, the empire was in the process of decline, shaken by internal rebellions and the pressure of Christian kingdoms to the north, but Marrakech remained an imposing city and the seat of a power that did not tolerate Christian preaching on its territory.

It is in this scenario - of imperial greatness and religious repression - that we must place the arrival of the five Franciscan brothers and the outcome of their mission.

2. The five Franciscans: who were and what their mission was

Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of the Minor Friars, had a missionary passion that he himself wanted to live in person on several occasions. In 1219 he had met Sultan Malik al-Kamil in Damieta, in the context of the Fifth Crusade, in a memorable meeting that has fascinated historians and theologians for centuries. The method of Francis was not that of the armed crusade but of the testimony: to go among the unarmed Saracens, to proclaim the Gospel with word and life, and if necessary, with martyrdom.

He sent his first brothers to Morocco. The five who left were:

Fray Berardo de CarbioItalian, priest, was the head of the little mission. Man of solid theological formation and great personal value. Fray Pedro de San Geminianoalso Italian and priest. Fray Acursio y Fray AdjutoLeagues of the Order. Fray OtonClergyman. The five departed from Portugal, where they had preached a time under the protection of the child Don Pedro, brother of King Alfonso II of Portugal.

His fate was Morocco, where they hoped to preach the Sultan and his court. They first passed through Seville, which was then under Almohade rule, where they preached openly in mosques and markets. They were arrested, released, and finally expelled to Morocco. They arrived in Marrakech and, far from being silent, continued to preach in public places with a determination that the authorities interpreted as deliberate provocation.

There is no exact historical consensus on whether Sultan Al-Murtada first tried to convince them to stop or whether the process was faster. What the Franciscan sources of the 13th century report is that, after several attempts to silence them without spilling blood, the Sultan ordered them to be beheaded.

3. The martyrdom of January 16, 1220

On 16 January 1220, the five brothers were taken to the place of execution. The Hagiographical sources of the Order, collected in the Chronic XXIV Generalium and in other Franciscan writings of the 13th century, they describe that the five prayed, sang and encouraged each other until the last moment. Berardo, as a superior, was first executed. The others followed him. The execution was carried out by beheading.

The news came to Italy through the brothers who remained in Portugal. Francis of Assisi, being informed of the death of the five, replied with a phrase that the chronists have transmitted with variants but that retains in all of them the same spirit: "Now I have five true brothers." It was not a sad comment, but a joyful recognition: they had lived the Gospel to the end. For Francis, martyrdom was not a defeat but the consummation of the gift of itself.

The remains of the five martyrs were taken to Portugal by the infant Don Pedro, and deposited in the church of Santa Cruz de Coimbra. A pious tradition - difficult to verify historically but widely transmitted - states that the young Agostinho de Sousa, an Agostino student in Coimbra, was so moved by the arrival of these relics that he decided to embrace Franciscan life. This young man would later become the doctor of the Church known as San Antonio de Padua, of Portuguese origin. His beatification and canonization came only a year after his death (1232), in a process of canonization of extraordinary speed for the time.

The five martyrs of Marrakech were canonized in 1481. His martyrdom was not only the first of the Franciscan Order, but one of the first testimonies of the new begging spirituality: not monks locked in monasteries, but brothers cast into the world, to its most dangerous ends, bearing the name of Jesus and the mantle of the Virgin.

4. The Church of the Holy Martyrs in Marrakech today

In Marrakech there is a Catholic church named after the five Franciscan martyrs. The Church of the Holy Martyrs is one of the oldest Catholic presence on Moroccan soil, although the current building dates from the French Protectorate period and was rebuilt several times.

The church was consolidated during the French Protectorate (1912-1956), when the Catholic community of Marrakech was relatively large and included French and Spanish settlers, military and workers. After Morocco's independence in 1956, most of that community migrated to Europe. However, the church remained open and active in the custody of the Franciscans of the Custody of Morocco, who continue to this day their pastoral presence in the country.

The church is today a prayer space for the small Catholic community of Marrakech, made up mainly of sub-Saharan migrants, foreign workers and some expatriates. It is also a place of pilgrimage for those who come to honor the memory of the first Franciscan martyrs. Their walls guard the memory of the five brothers who chose to die rather than deny Christ in the Almohad capital.

The Christian cemetery of Marrakech, near the church, contains the graves of Catholics who died in the city throughout the 20th century. It is a place of recollection and silence in the middle of the Medina's noise.

5. The Marian devotion of the Franciscans in Morocco

The five martyrs arrived in Morocco impregnated with Marian spirituality that Francis of Assisi had transmitted to his Order from the beginning. For Francis, the Virgin Mary was not an object of abstract devotion, but the Mother of God made close, the first sister in the life of the Spirit, the model of absolute evangelical poverty. He loved her with a tenderness expressed in her way of speaking about her, in her prayers and in her insistence that the Order have a special devotion under her cloak.

The brothers who left for Morocco carried that spirituality with them. In his preaching in Seville and Marrakech, the name of Mary must have sounded along with that of Jesus with the familiarity with which he was named by Francis. Franciscan Marian devotion has its own characteristic: it is not the triumphant devotion of the great medieval shrines, but the simple and daily devotion of the poor who come to a mother. The Virgin of the Franciscans is the woman of Nazareth, who took care of Jesus in poverty, who was at the foot of the Cross without running away.

In the context of martyrdom, devotion to Mary acquires an additional meaning. The martyrs are, in the Christian tradition, those who unite their suffering with that of Christ on the Cross. And Mary was on the Cross. The martyrdom of the five brothers in Marrakech was also, from this perspective, a participation in the mystery of the Passion that the Virgin saw from the feet of the Cross on Calvary. The Marian memory is therefore closely linked to the memory of these early Franciscan martyrs.

The Franciscan Order, which for centuries has been the custodians of the Holy Places of Jerusalem - including Calvary and the Sepulchre of Christ - carries in its soul this indissoluble bond between Mary, the Cross and martyrdom. The five brothers in Marrakech expressed it with their lives.

6. The current Catholic community in Marrakech

The Catholic community of Marrakech in the twenty-first century is small and discreet. Morocco is a Muslim-majority country where Islam is the official religion of the State and where conversion from Islam is socially punishable in practice. The Catholic Church in Morocco operates under the agreement between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Morocco, which guarantees freedom of veneration for foreign Catholics but limits missionary activity among the Muslim population.

In this context, the Catholic community of Marrakech consists mainly of people of sub-Saharan origin - many of them in precarious migration, hoping to be able to cross into Europe or have decided to stay in Morocco - along with a small number of European and American expatriates. The Masses are held in French and in some sub-Saharan languages, reflecting the real composition of the community.

The Franciscans of the Moroccan Custody, based in Rabat, are present in several cities of the country, including Marrakech, Casablanca, Fez and Tangier. His style of presence is the legacy of the long Franciscan tradition in the Maghreb: discretion, service to the poor, dialogue with local culture and religion, and silent testimony. In a sense, his way of living recalls that of Francis of Assisi himself when he met the Sultan in Damieta: without weapons, with the Gospel as the only credential.

The Church of the Holy Martyrs is, for this small community, not only a place of prayer but a symbol: proof that the Christian faith has been present in Morocco for centuries, long before the French Protectorate, and that this presence has its roots in martyrdom and love.

7. Spiritual reflection: the blood that sows

Tertulian, the Christian writer of the second century, wrote that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians." This phrase has accompanied the Church over the centuries, and has a particular meaning in the case of the five Franciscans of Marrakech. His martyrdom did not produce immediate conversions or the opening of Morocco to the Gospel. From a historical and human point of view, it was a defeat. And yet their faith generated fruits that they did not see: it inspired the vocation of Antonio de Padua, fertilized the missionary spirituality of the Franciscan Order, and gave the Church a perennial memory that preaching the Gospel can cost life.

The Virgin who the five brothers venerated - the Virgin of the poor, the Mother of the Crucified - is also the Mother of all who die in the name of their Son. The martyrdom does not end in the sword: it ends in the arms of the Mother. That is what Marian devotion brings to the spirituality of martyrdom: the certainty that death is not the end, but the threshold of life in God.