Matthew Kohioye

Who they were

The apostolic letter of beatification describes him as Matthew Kohioye of the Rosary, a catechist and novice cooperator brother of the Order of Preachers from the kingdom of Arima in Japan, barely eighteen years old, who went with the Spanish Dominican Lucas Alonso in spreading and witnessing to the faith.

He was put to the torment on 19 October 1633, beatified at Manila on 18 February 1981 by John Paul II and canonised in Rome on 18 October 1987 with Lorenzo Ruiz and the other martyrs of Nagasaki.

The miracles

As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.

Why that counted as sanctity

He is one of the sixteen men and women who, in the words of the canonisation homily, bore witness by their heroic sufferings and death to salvation in Christ in and around Nagasaki between 1633 and 1637.

Connected on this site

• Lorenzo Ruiz Saint
  “He was put to the torment on 19 October 1633, beatified at Manila on 18 February 1981 by John Paul II and canonised in Rome on 18 October 1987 with Lorenzo Ruiz and the other martyrs of Nagasaki.” — this site's research
• Lucas Alonso Gorda Blessed
  “At Nagasaki in Japan, the holy martyrs Lucas Alonso Gorda, priest, and Matthew Kohioye, religious, both of the Order of Preachers, of whom the first was a courageous minister of the Gospel first in the Philippine Islands and then for ten years in Japan, while the other, eighteen years old, was his companion in…” — this site's research