The modern martyrs of Westminster Abbey

Visitors to London’s Westminster Abbey can see a very interesting set of statues just above the main doorway at the west end. These celebrate ten “modern martyrs”.

Empty niches

Cathedrals and other large churches are notable for many things, one them being the serried ranks of statues of saints and bishops that occupy niches on the exterior stonework, with the west front being a common place to find them. However, on many such buildings all one can see are the niches, because the statues have long since disappeared for one reason or other – often out of Protestant zeal to destroy the “graven images” that adorned previously Catholic buildings.

Leaving the niches empty, however, makes the building look incomplete. The impression is of something missing. Is there not a way of dealing with these niches that will cause no offence to anyone?

The modern martyrs of Westminster Abbey

London’s Westminster Abbey solved this problem in a novel and interesting way, namely by commissioning statues of ten “modern martyrs” to stand in a row of niches that had been empty since the Middle Ages. They are on the west front of the Abbey, immediately above the main doors through which monarchs walk to be crowned or married or carried to be buried. They were unveiled on 9^th July 1998 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.

The people chosen as “modern martyrs” had to meet the criterion of having been killed for their faith or for advancing the needs of others. They are all 20^th century figures and they are from all over the world. The ten martyrs are:

Maximilian Kolbe – a Catholic priest who helped Jews in Poland and who died in Auschwitz in 1941 after offering to take the place of a condemned man.

Manche Masemola – a 16-year-old girl from South Africa who was killed by her parents in 1928 when she converted to Christianity.

Janani Luwum – the Archbishop of Uganda who was murdered on the orders of Idi Amin in 1977.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna – a member of the Russian Imperial family (by marriage) who founded a convent but was murdered by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.

Martin Luther King – the American civil rights campaigner who was murdered in 1969.

Oscar Romero – the Archbishop of San Salvador, murdered by a death squad in 1980.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a Lutheran theologian who was implicated in the bomb plot against Adolf Hitler and executed in 1945.

Esther John – a Pakistani nurse and Christian evangelist who was murdered by a Muslim relative in 1960.

Lucian Tapledi – an Anglican in New Guinea who was killed by invading Japanese troops in 1942.

Wang Zhiming – a Christian pastor in China who was executed in 1973 during the Cultural Revolution.

Presumably, had there been more than ten niches available, there would have been other candidates available for inclusion. As it stands, this memorial makes a powerful statement about the fact that people are still dying for their beliefs in the present age. Although most cathedrals only seem to commemorate people who are long-dead and long-forgotten, Westminster Abbey has bucked the trend in a dramatic and highly effective way.

© John Welford