I. A Farmer's Son from Berlare
The name of Father Amand Heirman lives on in Berlare, immortalized in the street name Pater Heirmanshoek. We drive and walk through this street without paying much attention, as most people do to get their fresh bread from the Bonnaerens bakery.
The street name commemorates a remarkable figure: Amand Heirman, born on October 24, 1862, in Pastoor Christiaensstraat. That street is named after the first known pastor in Berlare.1 Amand's family farm, located next to Drankenhandel Vercruyssen, still exists today.
Amand grew up as the sixth of nine children in the family of Petrus Heirman and Maria Blanquaert. His sister Euphrosine reached the impressive age of 100 in 1960. That anniversary was celebrated exuberantly in Berlare with a festive parade.2 The Heirman family, a wealthy farming family, had several religious vocations. Two aunts on his father's side were nuns, while an aunt on his mother's side was a beguine in Dendermonde. Amandus also shared family roots with Honoré Joseph Coppieters, who would later become bishop of Ghent.3
At the age of twenty-one, in 1883, Amand joined the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Scheut, Anderlecht. The missionary order was founded in the year of Amand Heirman's birth by Father Theophiel Verbist under the motto: ‘Cor Unum et Anima Una’, referring to the Acts of the Apostles.4 Verbist sought to establish a dedicated group of missionaries who would devote themselves entirely to the faith in the Chinese Empire. As national director of the Work of the Holy Childhood, Verbist was deeply moved by the stories of great poverty in China.5 It was not until the late 1880s that the order expanded its activities to Central Africa, with a particular focus on the Congo Free State under King Leopold II.
On June 20, 1886, Amand Heirman was ordained a priest in Mechelen. Less than two years later, he left for China as a missionary, a calling that would definitively determine his life's path.
II. “The good people were amazed and seemed to take great pleasure in the fact that I knew their customs and could speak their language (...)”6
After a weeks-long journey by steamboat, the young missionary reached the vast Chinese Empire. Without much ado, he was sent to a remote mission post in the Hot-Ouwa district, located in Central Mongolia. This area lies north of the Chinese heartland, between the immense Mongolian desert and the iconic Great Wall of China. Central Mongolia covers an area comparable to one third of Europe, but at the time had a population of barely 7 million, of whom about 5 million were Chinese.7
“All Mongolians and Chinese are Buddhists,” Father Heirman observed. ‘Among the Chinese, there are more than 5,000 Muslims. To date, these people are not hostile towards us, as they claim to also come from the West and worship the same God as us. However, the conversion of one of these Muslims seems almost impossible, a miracle of which we have not yet seen an example,’ he also noted.8
In 1892 and 1893, Central Mongolia was hit by a devastating famine. The disaster put the young mission stations and their newly formed church communities in great danger. Their survival hung by a thread. During this turbulent period, Father Amand was appointed provincial superior of Scheut for the area. This appointment entailed a heavy responsibility: supervising the mission, providing assistance, and preserving the church's work in the midst of the crisis. Father Amand himself remained active in Hot-Ouwa, where he guided new Belgian missionaries in their first steps in missionary work.
V. “We will defend ourselves, said the poor people, and if we must fall, God's will be done!”
In 1898, Father Amand stayed in Europe, where he participated in the general chapter of his congregation as provincial superior. Due to poor health, he remained in Europe longer than planned to recover. In March 1899, he returned to Central Mongolia, where he settled in Siang-houoti, a mission station in the Tai-Hai district. There he joined the Limburg missionary Father Jan Mallet.
From September of that same year, the Yihetuan, better known as the Boxers or ‘Fists of Justice and Unity’, began to direct their actions against Christianity. Their anger turned increasingly against Christian missionaries and Chinese converts. They considered them to be ‘lackeys of the foreign devils’.9
An excerpt from a Boxer poster leaves nothing to the imagination:
'Prince Wang, mandated by the administration as general officer of the Boxers, announces:
1. The primary goal of this sect is to exterminate the Christians and restore the kingdom.
2. The Boxers, enlightened by the spirits, can tell at first glance who is a Christian. As soon as they have overpowered one, they must immediately bring him before the tribunal. If, after investigation, it is established that he is a Christian and he does not renounce the Christian religion, he will be beheaded. If he converts, he will be given the opportunity to reform."10
Another example:
‘The shameful behavior of Christians and barbarians angers our Gods and Spirits, hence the many plagues we are now suffering from (...) The iron roads and iron cars disturb the earth dragon and destroy the beneficial influences of the soil (...) The missionaries remove the eyes, marrow, and hearts of the dead to make medicines. Anyone who drinks a glass of tea at the rectory is struck by death: their brains burst out of their skulls..."11
Boxer pamphlets were full of grotesque and absurd accusations. They claimed that Europeans stank because they drank menstrual blood. Other texts went even further: foreign traders would cut out women's eyes and nipples to use in their cameras. The boundless imagination of the pamphlet writers served one purpose: to stir up fear and hatred of everything Western.12
VI. The Martyrdom of Father Heirman
The reports of the Scheutists show how deeply rooted the faith was among Chinese Christians. A missionary wrote about the community in Siang-houo-ti: “We will defend ourselves, said the poor people, and if we must fall, God's will be done!”13 The Tai-Hai district was not spared the wrath of the Boxers. In June and July 1900, two attacks failed, but the threat remained. On August 4, Father Heirman wrote: ‘We are still alive, but every day we prepare ourselves for death, especially now that the civil administration has decided to expel all Europeans.’14 This administration referred to the mandarins.
Not long after, Father Heirman and Father Mallet received an invitation from the mandarin of Ning-iuen, who was in charge of the area where the priests were active. He summoned them to the court of Ning-iuen, a three-hour walk from Mallets mission post, with the message that the Grand Mandarin of the Blue City wanted to speak to them.15 The mandarin offered his protection, and the missionaries saw this visit as an opportunity to quell the uprising.16
Another version of the story tells that the priests were lured from their post under the pretext that a sick person needed to be ministered to.17
Under military escort, they left their mission post. On August 13, they arrived in the Blue City, where an official was waiting to take them to the Grand Mandarin. But before they reached their destination, Boxers surrounded their cart. They were nailed to the bottom of it and taken out of the city.18 “Yesterday, a Mongolian here said that the two confreres had been murdered the day after by the mandarin himself.”19
The murder did not go unpunished. The Grand Mandarin sent soldiers to Siang-houo-ti and Kom-koe-ien “to kill the Christians as well, and almost all of them were killed; only a few managed to escape by fleeing.”20
On September 15, 1900, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul de Favereau, received the following message from the Belgian envoy in Beijing: ‘I have bad news from Mongolia: Monsignor Hamer and the Belgian priests Heirman and Mallet have been murdered.’21
From 1905 onwards, consideration was given to starting a process of beatification for the nine Scheutists who had been killed. In 1907, a tribunal was appointed. All possible documents and testimonies were collected and sent to the competent congregation in 1934. The process of beatification was suspended, but not stopped.22
In 1950, a memorial plaque was unveiled in our parish church:
In addition to Fathers Amand Heirman (7) and Jan Mallet (9), the following also died:
Monsignor Ferdinand Hamer, the Apostolic Vicar of southwestern Mongolia (5), was burned alive on July 24, 1900, in T'o-Tch'eng. Father Jozef Segers (8) was buried alive in Lan-p'In-Hsien on July 24, 1900. Fathers Désiré Abbeloos (1), Jozef Dobbe (2), and Andreas Zijlmans (3) were burned alive in the church of T'ieh-Ko-Tan-Keou on August 22, 1900. Fathers Remigius Van Merhaeghe (4) and Henricus Bongaerts (6) were murdered in Sia-Yin-Tze on December 23, 1901.
They are commemorated annually on July 9 by the Congregation of Scheut. July 9 is the feast day of the Catholic Martyrs in China.
Thanks to Father Philippe de Rosen of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Scheut and to Mr. Etienne Le Bon for providing the basic documentation for this brochure created by Harry De Paepe.
Philippe de Rosen, cicm
Missionary in Belgium
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1 Curé Christiaen en 1268. Van den Breen, p. 159.
2 Infogem, p. 42.
3 HOK, 9e volume, n° 1, p. 35.
4 « Un seul cœur et une seule âme. »
5 « Le choix de Verbist pour la Chine », Kadoc.
6 Van den Breen, p. 234.
7 Le père Heirman, cité dans Van den Breen, p. 233.
8 Le père Heirman, cité dans Van den Breen, p. 233.
9 « Honderdtwintig jaar geleden geboren te Berlare », SD, p. 33.
10 Van den Breen, p. 237.
11 Rébellion des Boxers (1899-1901). Révolte des nationalistes chinois, historiek.net.
12 Rébellion des Boxers (1899-1901). Révolte des nationalistes chinois, historiek.net.
13 « Missions en Chine et au Congo ».
14 « Honderdtwintig jaar geleden geboren te Berlare », SD, p. 33.
15 « Missions en Chine et au Congo ».
16 Van den Breen, p. 236.
17 HOK, 9e volume, n° 1, p. 38.
18 « Honderdtwintig jaar geleden geboren te Berlare », SD, p. 33.
19 « Missions en Chine et au Congo ».
20 « Missions en Chine et au Congo ».
21 « Missions en Chine et au Congo ».
22 Van den Breen, p. 237.
(This article is abridged from the original source.)
