Axar.az presents an article, "Greater Love" by John Samuel Tieman.

A “new era of martyrdom”. That's what he warns of. A “new era of martyrdom.” Rob Hirschfeld, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, made a speech at a rally at the State House. He mourned the death of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, the mother of three shot by an I. C. E. agent in Minneapolis on January 7. “I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness, and I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written,” Hirschfeld said. “Now is no longer the time for statements, but for us, with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

In this January 9 speech, the bishop spoke of Jonathan Daniels, a white seminarian who died defending a Black woman. A native of New Hampshire, Daniels was a seminarian when he was martyred in 1965. Given today's violent racism, we do well to remember this saint.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels was, in some ways, an unremarkable young man. He was born on 20 March 1939. His father was a physician and his mother a housewife. He was raised a Congregationalist. He converted to Episcopalian. At Virginia Military Institute, he was valedictorian for the Class of 1961. He attended Harvard for a year. He then entered an Episcopal seminary. But there was not that much about his life that anyone would term extraordinary until 1965.

In 1965, Rev. Martin Luther King, jr., asked students and clergy to join him on his march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama. Daniels went. He intended to stay for a weekend. He requested his seminary's permission to remain in Selma for the rest of the semester. Permission was granted. He stayed for the rest of his life.

After the march to Montgomery, Daniels lived in Selma. His activism was varied. He tried to integrate a local white parish. He tutored Black children. He developed a list of federal, state, and local agencies that helped persons in need.

On Saturday, August 14th, he and others were arrested as they picketed local whites-only businesses in Fort Deposit. They were held, in miserable conditions, for six days. Upon release on the 20th, Daniels, a white Catholic priest, and two Black female protesters went to buy a soft drink at a store. An armed special deputy, Tom Coleman, barred their entry. He likely viewed them as mixed-race couples. Coleman then leveled his shotgun at seventeen-year-old Ruby Sales. Daniels rushed to Sales, pushed her away, and was killed by the blast intended for her. He died instantly. Father Richard F. Morrisroe grabbed activist Joyce Bailey and ran with her. Coleman shot Morrisroe in the back. Morrisrow lived, but suffered from this wound for the rest of his life. Jonathan Daniels was twenty-six. On March 20th of this year, he would be eighty-seven.

Coleman was indicted for manslaughter. He claimed self-defense. He was acquitted by an all-white jury.

Dr. King said, "[O]ne of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels." In 1991, the Episcopal Church raised Jonathan Daniels to the status of a saint. Usually, the feast of a martyr is celebrated on the anniversary of his death. But, because the 20th of August is the feast day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Daniels is remembered on the day of his arrest, the 14th. It is fitting that he is remembered on the day of his arrest. He once said in a sermon, “You are a child of God, and I am a child of God. Because you suffer, I must suffer, too.” And every year, on the 14th of August, the martyrdom of Jonathan Daniels will be used to illustrate the text, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.