Meet the Chinese Soldier who Became a Priest and Chose Death Over Denying Jesus

Saint Augustine Zhao Rong (1746–1815) was a Chinese imperial soldier who converted to Christianity after witnessing the unwavering faith of a French missionary priest he was assigned to guard. He later became the first native-born Chinese diocesan priest of his region, and was tortured to death in 1815 for refusing to renounce Christ. He was canonised alongside 119 companions by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000.

*He was sent to guard a prisoner of the empire. He left a prisoner of grace.*

Few conversion stories in Church history carry the dramatic weight of Saint Augustine Zhao Rong — a soldier of imperial China who, after witnessing the courage of a French missionary under arrest, abandoned a military career to follow Jesus Christ, entered the priesthood, and ultimately gave his life rather than deny the faith he had only recently found.

His story is not merely an inspiring footnote in Catholic hagiography. It is a living rebuke to the idea that the Gospel can be contained, suppressed, or escorted to its death.



Who Was Saint Augustine Zhao Rong?

Augustine Zhao Rong (趙榮; Zhào Róng) was born in 1746 in Wuchuan County, Guizhou Province, China. He was not born into a Christian family, had no connection to the Church in his early years, and gave no early indication that he would one day become one of the most celebrated martyrs in the history of global Christianity.

He joined the imperial army of the Qing Dynasty when he was around twenty years old. As a soldier of the empire, his allegiance was to the state — the same state that periodically targeted Christians as dangerous subversives loyal to foreign powers.

What changed everything was an assignment.

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## The Encounter That Transformed a Soldier

In 1785, Zhao Rong was put in charge of guarding Father Gabriel-Taurin Dufresse — a French missionary who had been arrested and was being taken to Beijing. The assignment was routine from the empire’s perspective. For Zhao Rong, it was a divine appointment.

There was something about this foreigner’s bearing, his patience in the face of suffering and imminent uncertainty, that struck the soldier. He began to listen to this leader of an outlawed faith.

What he witnessed was not performance or religious theatre. During the long journey, the bishop impressed Zhao Rong with his kindness and peaceful demeanour in the face of persecution. In a culture where honour and strength defined manhood, here was a man facing imprisonment with a serenity that power could not manufacture.

Zhao Rong was converted through his contact with Father Gabriel. When Father Gabriel was later released from prison, he baptized Zhao Rong, who received the name Augustine.

The soldier who had guarded the prisoner became the spiritual son of the man he once escorted in chains.

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## From Baptism to the Priesthood

What distinguished Zhao Rong from other converts of his era was the depth and direction of his commitment. He did not simply join a congregation. He heard a call to serve.

Augustine wanted to become a priest himself. He was ordained only five years after his baptism by François Pottier, Apostolic Vicar of Szechwan.

Father Augustine, whose name is attached to the feast day, was the first native-born Chinese priest and the first Chinese priest to be martyred. This is not a detail to pass over lightly. In a country where Christianity was viewed as a foreign religion imposed by Western powers, the ordination of a Chinese man — a former soldier, no less — was itself a quiet revolution. The Gospel had not merely arrived in China as an imported creed. It had taken root.

The bishop assigned him to care for all Catholics in the three counties of Guan Xian, Jin Tang, and Wen Jiang in western Sichuan Province. Zhao Rong tirelessly taught, zealously preached, devotedly fulfilled his duties, and heard confessions with care.

He was not a distant administrator of religion. He was a shepherd on the ground, in the middle of a people who risked everything to gather for worship.

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## Arrest, Torture, and the Choice to Die

The political climate in China turned sharply hostile in the early 19th century. The Jiaqing Emperor published numerous and severe decrees against Christianity. The first was issued in 1805. Two edicts of 1811 were directed against those among the Chinese who were studying to receive sacred orders, and against priests who were propagating the Christian religion. A decree of 1813 exonerated voluntary apostates from every punishment — but all others were to be dealt with harshly.

The pressure was immense. Apostasy meant freedom. Faithfulness meant death.

As Christian persecution began again in 1815, Father Yang urged Zhao Rong to leave the region, but being old and frail, Zhao Rong explained his inability to escape. He asked Father Yang to pray for his perseverance, courage, and steadfastness. One day a gangster questioned Zhao Rong about his belief in Catholicism. Zhao Rong replied that he not only believed in the Catholic Church, but that he also was a leader in the Church.

It was a remarkable answer. He did not minimise his faith to survive. He announced it.

The bandit reported him to state officers, leading to his arrest and subsequent transfer to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. In prison, Zhao Rong endured various forms of abuse.

He died of torture at Chengdu on January 27, 1815.

He was 68 years old. He had been a Christian for roughly thirty years. He had served as a priest for most of that time, knowing from the beginning that his faith was not a decoration but a death sentence he was willingly carrying.

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## The 120 Martyrs of China

Augustine Zhao Rong did not stand alone. He stood at the head of a vast company.

The feast commemorates 120 martyrs — 87 native Chinese and 33 Western missionaries — killed in a long trail of blood from 1648 to 1930. This roll call of heroes includes lay women, catechists, seminarians, bishops, priests, a cook, a farmer, a widow, a 79-year-old man and a child of nine. Some were killed while taking sanctuary inside a church. A large number died during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

There were Chinese priests who rose up in Father Augustine Zhao Rong’s footsteps, lay catechists, merchants, cooks, farmers, and an adolescent boy who, at the threat of being flayed alive, exclaimed: “Every piece of my flesh will tell you that I am a Christian.”

These were not theological warriors with academic training. They were ordinary people who had encountered the living Christ and found Him worth dying for.

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## Canonised Before the World

Pope Saint John Paul II canonised the 120 Martyrs of China at Saint Peter’s on 1 October 2000, the Solemnity of Mission Sunday in the Great Jubilee Year.

In his canonisation homily, Pope John Paul II said the martyrs of China teach the universal Church that the witness of Christ is rendered in every culture, and that the blood of those who profess one faith on Chinese soil reveals an authentically Catholic and authentically Chinese Church.

Their feast on July 9 is observed throughout the Latin Rite as an Optional Memorial. The date commemorates the mass martyrdom in 1900 when the Bishop of Taiyuan and his companions were beheaded during the Boxer Rebellion.

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## What Augustine Zhao Rong’s Story Says to the Church Today

There is a temptation to read stories like this as history — distant, remote, belonging to a different era. But the dynamics of his life are not historical at all.

He encountered Christ not through a sermon but through the visible witness of a believer under pressure. He chose fidelity over comfort at every stage — in converting, in seeking ordination during a time of persecution, in refusing to flee when he had the chance, in announcing his faith to the man who would betray him.

He lived what Jesus declared in Matthew 10:33: *“But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”*

And he embodied what Paul affirmed in Philippians 1:21: *“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”*

Facing the strong anti-foreign and anti-Catholic feelings present in China for centuries, these martyrs were caught up in a situation that in many ways had nothing to do either with religion or with the Church. But they stayed loyal to Christianity and to their people, and gave their lives in witness.

In nations across Africa and the global South, where Christians today face persecution ranging from social marginalisation to active violence, Augustine Zhao Rong remains a relevant and urgent patron. He was not a Westerner who died for a Western religion. He was a man from within his own culture who chose Jesus over the empire — and paid for it.

His life asks every believer a simple, impossible-to-avoid question: *When it costs everything, what will you choose?*

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**Feast Day:** July 9
**Born:** 1746, Wuchuan County, Guizhou, China
**Died:** January 27, 1815, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
**Canonised:** October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II
**Category:** Saint, Martyr, Priest

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**FAQs**

**Was Augustine Zhao Rong born a Christian?**
No. He was born in 1746 into a non-Christian family and served as a soldier in the Qing imperial army before converting to Christianity as an adult.

**Who converted Augustine Zhao Rong?**
He was converted through contact with French missionary Father Gabriel-Taurin Dufresse, whom he was assigned to guard as a prisoner in 1785. Dufresse later baptised him after being released.

**Was Zhao Rong the first Chinese priest?**
He was the first native-born Chinese diocesan priest of his region, and the first Chinese priest to be martyred.

**When was he canonised?**
He was canonised on October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II, together with 119 other martyrs known collectively as the Martyrs of China.

**What is his feast day?**
July 9, observed as an Optional Memorial throughout the Latin Rite.

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