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Dokkum
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · Saint Boniface

Dokkum

Boniface · Netherlands

The English missionary Boniface had spent his life spreading the faith in Germany. In old age he returned to Frisia, and on 5 June 754, while he was waiting near Dokkum to confirm new believers, armed men attacked and killed him and his companions. He forbade his followers to fight back. Today the Bonifatius chapel stands in a park on the traditional spot, and each year in June a pilgrimage is held there in his memory.

Did you know?

The Boniface spring near the chapel is named after a story in which water welled up where his horse stamped its hoof.

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An inspiring story

A book instead of a sword

What do you grab when you are attacked?

On 5 June 754 armed men attacked Boniface's camp near Dokkum, where he was waiting to confirm newly baptised Christians. The young men with him reached for their weapons. The old bishop, around eighty, stopped them: 'Do not repay evil with evil.' Why not fight back? Because he had come to bring a message of peace, and he refused to deny it in his last moments. He held up a book to protect his head. In Fulda a book is still kept with deep cuts in it, the very book he held up that morning.

The sword won the fight that day. But the book is still here.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Romans 12:21

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