Zhang He, Thérèse, St.
ZHANG HE, THÉRÈSE, ST.
Lay martyr, also known as Thérèse Chang Ho-shih or Teresa Tchang-Hene-Cheu; b. 1864, Ningqin County, Hebei (Hopeh) Province, China; d. there, July 16, 1900. Thérèse, born into a Catholic family, had expressed a desire to die for the faith. When she came of age, she married into the local Zhang family. Thérèse was captured by the Boxers in the village kitchen garden. Together with her son and daughter she was taken to the local temple to apostatize. Upon her refusal, all three were stabbed to death. She was among the 2,072 killed between June and August 1900 whose causes were submitted to the Vatican of which 56 were beatified by Pope Pius XII (April 17, 1955) and canonized (Oct. 1, 2000) by Pope John Paul II with Augustine Zhao Rong and companions.
Feast: July 20.
Bibliography: l. miner, China's Book of Martyrs: A Record of Heroic Martyrdoms and Marvelous Deliverances of Chinese Christians during the Summer of 1900 (Ann Arbor 1994). j. simon, Sous le sabre des Boxers (Lille 1955). c. testore, Sangue e palme sul fiume giallo. I beati martiri cinesi nella persecuzione della Boxe Celi Sud-Est, 1900 (Rome 1955). L'Osservatore Romano, Eng. Ed. 40 (2000): 1–2, 10.
[k. i. rabenstein]