Feast day: September 11

St. John Gabriel Perboyre

Priest, Martyr · 1802–1840

Patron of China missions

A French Vincentian priest who longed for the missions of China, served there in disguise during persecution, was betrayed, tortured, and strangled on a cross-shaped frame.

He was bound to a wooden cross and strangled — his death so resembling his Lord's that he became the first canonized martyr of the China missions.