Lorenzo Ruiz and companions
Manila father of a family who boarded a ship for Japan by mistake, first Filipino saint, dead under the torture of the pit.
- Early modern era
- Japan
- Feast day September 28
- † 1637
- Martyr
- Missionary
Listen to the life 1:03
Lorenzo Ruiz was a calligrapher and sacristan in Manila, son of a Chinese father and a Tagalog mother, married and father of three, when an accusation drove him to board a ship in flight: only at sea did he learn he was bound for Japan, where Christianity was punished by death. There were six of them aboard — four Dominicans, including the Frenchman Guillaume Courtet, and the lay leper Lázaro of Kyoto. Arrested at Okinawa, they suffered at Nagasaki the torture of the pit, hung head down with the upper body inside the hole. Lorenzo was promised his life if he recanted; the acts record his answer: he had a thousand lives to offer, and would not recant. He died on 29 September 1637 and was canonised in 1987 with fifteen companions put to death separately between 1633 and 1637 — the first saint of the Philippines.
