Our Lady of the Seven Martyrs of Thailand Shrine Catholic Church - Mukdahan Province

The Seven Martyrs Catholic Church - exterior

Our Lady of the Seven Martyrs of Thailand Shrine in Mukdahan Province is the largest Catholic church in Thailand. The shrine was constructed in honour of the seven Thai Christian martyrs who sacrificed their lives to protect their religion.

At that time, there were a number of Catholic communities in Thailand, along the banks of the Mekong River. They were being converted by mostly French missionaries. Thailand had expelled foreign missionaries because it wanted the local population to convert to Buddhism. 

The Seven Martyrs Catholic Church - interior

Phibul, who was at the time dictator of Thailand was planning an invasion of French Indo-China to recover territories lost over the preceding 100 years. Phibul effectively banned the Catholic religion in these places and local police were ordered to oversee the reconversion of Catholics to the Buddhist religion - by force if necessary. 

The Sisters were told to dress as proper Thai women and to stop teaching Christianity. The local Christian villagers of Ban Song Khon refused, and seven of them were shot dead by Thai officials in December 1940.

In 1989 Pope John Paul II Beatified the Thai Martyrs -- two Lovers of the Cross sisters, a catechist, a homemaker and three teenage girls.

The Seven Martyrs Catholic Church- garden

The names of the martyrs are:

• Blessed Philip Siphong Onphitak, catechist, 33 years old
• Blessed Sister Agnes Phila, 31 years old, belonged to Lovers of the Holy Cross Congregation
• Blessed Sister Lucia Khambang, 23 years old, belonged to Lovers of the Holy Cross Congregation
• Blessed Agatha Phutta, 59 years old
• Blessed Cecilia Butsi, 16 years old
• Blessed Bibiana Khampai, 15 years old
• Blessed Maria Phon, 14 years old

Our Lady Queen of the Seven Martyrs Church in Mukdahan is located 642 kilometers northeast of Bangkok.

This is a letter of Sister Agnes Phila to the police before the execution -

The Seven Martyrs Catholic Church

"To the Chief Police in Songkhon
Yesterday evening you received your order to wipe out, definitely, the Name of God, the Only Lord of our lives and minds. We adore Him only, Sir. A few days earlier, you had mentioned to us that you would not wipe out the Name of God and we were rather pleased with that in such a way that we put away our religious habits which showed that we were His handmaids. But it not so today. We do profess that the religion of Christ is the only true religion. Therefore, we would like to give our answer to your question, asked yesterday evening which we did not have a chance to respond because we were unprepared for it. Now we would like to give you our answer. We are asking you to carry out your order with us. Please do not delay any longer. Please carry out your order. Please open the door of heaven to us so that we can confirm that outside the Religion of Christ no none can go to heaven. Please do it. We are well prepared. When we will be gone we will remember you. Please take pity on our souls. We will be thankful to you and will be grateful to you for it. And on the last day we will see each other face to face.

Do wait and see, please. We keep your commands, oh God, we wish to be witnesses to You, dear God. We are: Agnes, Lucia, Phuttha, Budsi, Buakhai, Suwan. We would like to bring little Phuma along with us because we love her so much. We have already made up our minds, dear Sir."