Talk:Chinese Martyrs

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	Chinese Martyrs is part of the WikiProject Saints, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Saints on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to saints as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to saints. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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[edit] Article title

This article isn't only about those who died during the Boxer Rebellion, nor is it only about Roman Catholics. If you want to change the name, you'll have to split the different information into different articles (you would also need to take care of the double redirects, and update the title at the beginning of the text to make the articles' subjects clear). The Chinese New Martyrs is the name of the Catholics who died in 1900, but I don't know where you'd put the others, they're just called the Chinese Martyrs or Martyrs of China as far as I know. But since there is very little info in this stub already, I'd object to the split. "Chinese Martyrs" is fine until the article or sections are expanded.--Cúchullain ^t/c 01:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Brian0324, I don't think this article should focus only on the Catholic martyrs, as I have said. The Orthodox Church has canonized their own saints as well. We shouldn't shift the focus unless (a.) the Catholic section is greatly expanded to necessitate its own article or (b.) the other info is split into its own article. Since neither of those things has happened, I object to the renaming and shift of focus. I'm sorry, but I'm reverting it back.--Cúchullain ^t/c 07:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Not wanting to start a war over this. This stub is very vague and I was attempting to add some clarity to it. Because it now reads: "martyred" and "mostly Roman Catholics and Chinese" and it is not a neutral point of view. "...other churches recognized their own martyrs" implies that the others who were killed for their faith were not part of "THE Chinese Martyrs". The fact that they are accepted as "martyrs" by the Roman church does not make them "martyrs" in the Orthodox or even the Protestant sense. So, since the meager content of this stub is mostly about the Roman Catholic individuals who were cannonized, it is appropriate to divide things and qualify things as I had done. There are undoubtably many who will oppose the term "Martyrs" itself in the title because of the modern cultural connotations that it carries like "Martyrs of Sept. 11" (hijackers)...But it does work if this article is limited to the Papal decree that popularized a phrase - if that is what it is.Brian0324 22:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I think you misunderstood what the article was supposed to be about. That's of course my fault, as I started the article (the number 120 applies to the recently-sainted Catholics, not to all who died at the time, but I confused it). The article should contain these facts:

• There were some Christians who died in China during the 19th and 20th centuries. They are collectivelly known as the "Chinese Martyrs" or "Martyrs of China", regardless of their religion or the time they were killed.
• One subset of the "Chinese Martyrs" are the Catholics who died. The Catholic Church recognizes this subset as saints.
• Another subset of the "Chinese Martyrs" are the Orthodox Christians who died. They are celebrated by the Orthodox Church.
• Both churches use the name "Chinese Martyrs" (or "Martyrs of China") for their subset.

This said,

• Neither church celebrates the other church's subset officially (I don't think), but that does not mean that only one group or the other may be called the "Chinese Martyrs", or that only one group deserves a Wikipedia article (whatever the title).

Additionally:

• Protestants died during this time as well. There is no Protestant body for officially recognizing martyrs or saints, however, and I don't think I've ever seen them referred to as part of the "Chinese Martyrs". There is an article on them already, though, which should be linked to from this one, at least in the "see also" section.

This needs to get across first. I would not object to there being two articles for the Catholic and Orthodox Chinese Martyrs, except that this article is a stub to begin with- we would be splitting one stub into two stubs, which is just unnecessary. The subjects are related, and can be discussed perfectly well in one place. As to the objection about the word "martyr", well, that's just what these people are called. We don't need to go out of our way constructing a new title that people would be unlikely to search for when we have an adequate one already. The "Martyrs of September 11" is a bad example- those people have been given plenty of other names.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It is much clearer now. Thanks for adressing. The title is presented in a much more neutral way.Brian0324 15:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)