The 800 Martyrs of Otranto | EWTN

On August 12, 1480, at the Battle of Otranto, Ottoman troops beheaded 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam. An excerpt from the article:

"In the Hands of the Ottoman Army

The Turks approached the city of Otranto, with some 150 ships and more than 15,000 men, led by the Gedik Ahmed Pasha. The city had 6,000 inhabitants and had been abandoned by the Aragonese militias, committed in Tuscany. No sooner has the siege began, which lasted 15 days, they were ordered to surrender, and ordered to renounce their faith in Christ and convert to Islam. As the inhabitants refused, the city was bombed and fell into the hands of the invaders on August 12. The inflamed army killed them mercilessly, striking them with scimitars.

Arriving at the cathedral, where a good part of the inhabitants had sought refuge, the Ottomans knocked down the door and encircled Archbishop Stefano Pendinelli, who was celebrating Holy Mass and distributing the Eucharist to those present. Archbishop Pendinelli was horribly quartered on the spot. In addition to the prelate, they killed canons, Religious and other faithful who were in the church.

Death Rather than Apostasy

The next day, the Ahmed Pasha ordered that all the survivors, some 800 men, be taken to the Turkish camp and forced to apostatize. Antonio Primaldo, a humble cloth shearer, answered firmly and immediately on behalf of all. He said they “regarded Jesus Christ as Son of God, their true Lord and God, and preferred to die a thousand times rather than deny him and become Muslims.” Commander Ahmed then ordered their execution.

Youths, adults, the elderly were led with ropes around their neck and their hands tied behind their back to the hill of Minerva, on the outskirts of the city. Before they were martyred, they comforted one another.

Primaldo, the first to suffer decapitation, stood up miraculously and stayed that way until the end of the killings. The miracle so impressed Berlabei, one of the executioners, that he flung his scimitar, confessed himself a Christian and was then impaled.

The inert bodies were left out in the open for a year in the place of execution, where they were found uncorrupted by the troops sent to liberate Otranto. In June of 1481, their remains were taken to the nearby church , “to the source of Minerva,” and on October 13 they were moved to the Cathedral. At the beginning of 1500 a chapel was built inside the Cathedral to house the relics definitively, constant object of pilgrimages."