The Twenty-One Martyrs of Libya

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity gives this account. On 15 February 2015 twenty-one young men were put to death on the coast of Libya for their Christian faith. Twenty were Egyptian Copts and one came from Ghana. They were workers who had been kidnapped in the city of Sirte in December 2014 and January 2015 by militiamen claiming to belong to the “Islamic State”, and they were beheaded on a beach in the western part of the city (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, pp. 3–4). The man from Ghana, the note says, was not a Coptic Christian; asked to deny Christ, he answered, “Their God is my God” (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, pp. 3–4). The Dicastery prints the twenty-one names, ending with his: Matthew Ayariga (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, p. 4).

On 16 February Francis, at the end of an address to the Moderator and representatives of the Church of Scotland, turned to his native tongue to speak of what he had read that day, the execution of “those twenty-one or twenty-two Coptic Christians”. They were killed, he said, simply for being Christians, and it made no difference whether such victims were Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants: “Their blood confesses Christ.” He called this an “ecumenism of blood” (Francis, Address to the Church of Scotland (16 February 2015), last paragraph but one).

A notice of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, dated 21 February, reports that Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria, announced that day the inclusion of “the 21 Coptic New Martyrs of Libya” in the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church, to be commemorated each year on 8 Amshir, which corresponds to 15 February (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, The New Martyrs of Libya added to the Coptic Synaxarium (21 February 2015)). The Dicastery’s note adds that the Holy Synod of that church confirmed the entry of their names and in 2017 made 8 Amshir a yearly day of contemporary martyrs (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, pp. 3–4). Neither report is the Coptic church’s own act: the pope’s announcement is known here through a diocese’s notice, the synod’s decision through the Dicastery’s booklet. By the same note, the remains were found in a mass grave on the Libyan coast in 2017; those of the twenty Egyptians were returned to the Coptic church in May 2018, and those of Matthew Ayariga were brought to Egypt in September 2020 (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, pp. 3–4). They rest in a church built for them in the village of Al-Our, near Samalut, from which thirteen of the men came (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, pp. 3–4).

On 11 May 2023 Tawadros was in Rome for the fiftieth anniversary of the meeting of Paul VI and Shenouda III (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), hagiographical note, pp. 3–4) (Francis, Address to Tawadros II (11 May 2023), heading and opening paragraphs), for which see the common declaration of 1973. Francis thanked him for the gift of a relic of the martyrs and announced that, “with Your Holiness’ consent, these 21 martyrs will be included in the Roman Martyrology as a sign of the spiritual communion uniting our two Churches” (Francis, Address to Tawadros II (11 May 2023), paragraph beginning ‘In this journey of friendship’). The first commemoration in the Catholic Church was kept on 15 February 2024 with an ecumenical prayer in St Peter’s Basilica, in which the vicar general of a Coptic Orthodox diocese took part (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Memorial of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2024), notice of the first commemoration (16 February 2024)).