List of protomartyrs explained

A protomartyr (Koine Greek, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: πρῶτος prôtos 'first' + Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: μάρτυς mártus 'martyr') is the first Christian martyr in a country or among a particular group, such as a religious order. Similarly, the phrase the Protomartyr (with no other qualification of country or region) can mean Saint Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian Church.Saint Thecla the Protomartyr, the first female martyr of the Christian Church, is known as "apostle and protomartyr among women".^[1]

Name	Year	Place	first...
	c. 34		-
Thecla	1st century	Iconium	among women
First Martyrs of the Church of Rome	64	Rome	in Rome
Sandukht	1st century	Armenia	in Armenia
Saint Alban^[2]	3rd/4th c.	St Albans	in Great Britain
Denis of Paris	3rd century	Paris	in Gallia Lugdunensis
	304	Valencia	in Spain
Rajden the First-Martyr^[3]	457		from Georgia / under the Sassanid Empire
	5th c.		in Ireland
Boniface	754	Germany	in German lands
	997		in the Duchy of Poland
Five Martyr Brothers	1003	Poland	in Poland and Camaldolese
Martyrs Theodore and his son, John, of Kiev	10th c.	Kiev	in all Rus lands
	1220		of the Franciscan order
Peter of Verona	1252	Italy	of the Dominican Order
Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala^[4]	1527	Mexico	in the Americas
	1542	Kansas	in what is now the United States
	1549
Antonio de Valdivieso	1549	León	in Nicaragua
	1627	Nagasaki	in Japan
	1627	Nagasaki	from Mexico^[5]
	1637	Nagasaki	from the Philippines
Blessed Andrew of Phu Yen^[6]	1641	Kẻ Chàm, Vietnam	in Vietnam
André de Soveral	1645	Canguaretama	in Brazil^[7]
	1648		in the Chinese Empire
	1672		in Guam
Juvenaly^[8]	1796	Quinhagak, Alaska	in Alaska
	1846	Seoul	in Korea
	1885		in Eastern Equatorial Africa
Peter Chanel	1841	Futuna	in Oceania
	1918	Moscow	under the Soviet Union
Marcello Maruzzo and Luis Navarro	1981	Los Amates

Notes and References

1. Michael F. Bird, Scott Harrower, The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers, Cambridge University Press (2021), p. 183; see also St. Thekla, Protomartyr and Equal to the Apostles (antiochian.org).
2. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01252b.htm Thurston, Herbert. "St. Alban." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.
3. Machitadze, Archpriest Zakaria (2006), "St. Razhden, Protomartyr of the Georgian Church (†457)", in The Lives of the Georgian Saints . pravoslavie.ru. Retrieved on 2011-12-18.
4. http://www.ewtn.com/jp99/proto.htm Proto-martyrs of the Americas
5. Philip of Jesus, one of the companions of Peter Baptist, was long known as the first Mexican saint. This has technically no longer been the case since the canonization of the Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala by Pope Francis in 2017.
6. Web site: WYD02 Saints: Blessed Andrew of Phu Yen – Protomartyr of Vietnam . 2009-12-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101128072302/http://saltandlighttv.org/blog/?p=430 . 2010-11-28 . dead .
7. Web site: Protomartyrs of Brazil . 2014-01-24 . 2019-01-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190128083206/http://www.gcatholic.org/saints/jpii-blesseds10.htm . dead .
8. Web site: ЮВЕНАЛИЙ (ГОВОРУХИН) - Древо . 2023-09-26 . drevo-info.ru . ru.