Biography
Maria Fan Kun
About Maria Fan Kun
Maria Fan Kun was a Chinese Catholic girl from Daji in Wuqiao, Hebei, born around 1884. She grew up in an orphanage at Wangla with Lucia Wang Cheng, Maria Qi Yu and Maria Zheng Xu. Their accounts concern the violence that ended their lives.
The Markham parish account places their capture on June 24, 1900, when Boxers attacked the village and burned its church. It says that Fan Kun was subjected to a forced marriage and that all four girls refused demands to abandon Christianity. This is a later devotional account, not a transcript of their words.
She died on June 28, 1900, still in her teens. GCatholic lists her as a lay martyr, records her beatification on April 17, 1955, and gives June 28 as her individual commemoration. Its approximate birth year does not establish an exact age.
John Paul II canonized her in 2000.
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