Francisco Serrano Frías

Francisco Serrano (1695–1748, Chinese name: 德方济) was a Spanish Catholic missionary in China during the 18th century. He died as a martyr in 1748 and was later canonized by the church as a saint.

He was born on December 4, 1695, in Huéneja in southern Spain. His father was Juan Serrano Ximénez and his mother was María de Frías Treviño. He joined the Dominican Order in Spain and made his profession of vows at the Monastery of Santa Cruz la Real in 1714.

Serrano and several other Dominicans were sent as missionaries to Asia in 1725. They embarked from Cadiz and sailed westwards to Spanish Mexico. They crossed Mexico on foot and arrived at the port of Acapulco where they waited for more than a year for a ship that would cross the Pacific Ocean and bring them to the Spanish Philippines. They sailed on the ship Nuestra Señora de los Dolores and arrived in Manila in 1727. 

He with other Dominicans were soon afterwards sent to do mission work in China. He worked illegally as a missionary priest in Fujian, and clandestinely travelled to Christian communities to minister to them.

 It was said of Serrano,

“He was gifted with endurance to the extreme, a tremendous personal vitality. In those difficult times, he often had to disguise himself as a peasant, and cross forests and rivers at night in order to administer the Sacraments to the Christians and give them encouragement…. Serrano is a living reminder of death. But he works as energetically as a lion for the benefit of souls.”

Serrano’s success in disguising himself from the authorities finally ended in June 1746. He was arrested and taken to the Fuzhou Prison, where he was interrogated and tortured for the next 28 months. One of his ears was permanently damaged from the beatings he endured. The interrogators were desperate to obtain the names of key Chinese Catholics who had protected Serrano, but he refused to give them any of the information they desired. In those days when a criminal was sentenced to death he was branded across his face. Serrano wrote, “Our hearts exulted. We were branded as slaves of Jesus Christ. Since our great Lord accepts us, these heads of ours are no longer ours any more, but the Lord’s. He can take them whenever he wishes.”

On the night of October 28, 1748, Francis Serrano was put to death by suffocation in his prison cell. He had lived his 57-years to the full, and had spent 23 of those preaching the gospel in China.