The Church of England is making plans to commemorate 21 Christian men martyred by ISIS in 2015.
The victims, 20 Egyptians and a Ghanaian, were mostly migrant labourers working in Libya. They fell into the hands of ISIS when the terror group took control of the city of Sirte. In a typical attempt to stoke up the drama, ISIS filmed the moments before the men were beheaded for refusing to renounce Christ.
The Coptic Orthodox has already recognised the men as martyrs.
This week the Church of England’s General Synod received a proposal to make 15 February the feast day of the slain men. A motion to “take note” of the proposal was passed by a show of hands, meaning that the memorial has not yet become a part of the Common Worship Calendar, but plans to do so are progressing.
In a proposed biography of the men, the Church said, “The men’s steadfastness in the face of this brutal act has been widely recognised as a profound witness to the Christian faith. These martyrs … refused to renounce Christ despite the threat of death.
“They affirmed their faith with the supplication O my Lord Jesus as they met their end. They were targeted specifically for their Christian identity. Their murder was intended as a message of terror, yet it became an extraordinary testimony to Christian courage and perseverance.”
Additions to the Church’s Common Worship Calendar are rare. One of the more recent additions was the marking of 24 April in memory of the Seven Martyrs of the Melanesian Brotherhood.
Seven members of the Melanesian Brotherhood, an Anglican religious community of men in the Solomon Islands, were killed in April 2003 during the ethnic tensions and civil unrest on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
Six of the brothers knowingly walked into a conflict zone unarmed in an attempt to secure the peaceful release of a brother who was missing. The brother had in fact already been murdered by militants believed to have been led by self-proclaimed prophet Harold Keke. The militants killed them all, with some being tortured beforehand.
