St Bartholomew's Day Massacre Season 1 | Episode 38
In 1572 here in Paris, an event took place
that has been described in the book Great Controversy as
'blackest in the black catalogue of crime.'
On the 24th of August, St. Bartholomew's Massacre began.
As the bells sounded at night,
a slaughter began of the French Protestants who were in the city.
There were more of them than usual,
because they had gathered for the wedding of one of their leaders.
And in the night they were dragged from their houses
and murdered in cold blood.
The slaughter continued here in the city of Paris for seven days
and then it spread abroad to other cities like Lyon, and Rouen, and Orleans
and some people estimate that up to 70,000 people were killed
over the next weeks and months.
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Two days before St. Bartholomew's, the king's mother, Catherine,
ordered the assassination of Admiral Gaspar de Coligny, a Huguenot leader.
The assassination attempt failed,
and they feared that the Huguenots would launch a counter-attack
and so the second time around
they made sure and they killed the Admiral in his bed.
And then the killing spree started.
The butchery continued for seven months across the whole of France.
Many of those who were killed were great and honorable people in society
as commoners and nobility alike suffered the same fate.
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Two or three governors refused to obey the king's orders,
and one of these, called Montmorrin,
wrote a letter that deserves to be repeated.
'Sire, I had received an order under your majesty seal,
to put to death all the Protestants in my province.
I have too much respect for your majesty not to believe the letter is a forgery
but if (which god forbid) the order should be genuine,
I have too much respect for your majesty to obey it.
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When the news reached Rome,
the response was jubilant and very undiplomatic.
The joy amongst the clergy knew no bounds.
The Cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the messenger with a thousand crowns;
the canon of St Angelo thundered a joyous salute;
and the bells on every steeple rang throughout the city.
Gregory XIII, accompanied by cardinals and other ecclesiastical dignitaries,
led a procession to the Church of St Louis
where the Cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum.
A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre
and in the Vatican today can be seen the three frescoes of Vasari,
describing the attack on the admiral,
the king in council plotting the massacre, and the massacre itself.
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St Bartholomew's was one of those events that helped to create a shared identity
between Lutherans, Calvin's Reformed Church, and the Anglicans.
Catholicism was the 'other',
and the violence directed towards Protestants
created a shared sense of injustice and solidarity
that spread throughout international Protestantism.
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St Bartholomew's remains one of the many stains on the Catholic Church,
when the tragic consequences of the union of church and state
were seen in full effect.
In the Bible, Jesus said
that we should render to Caesar, or the state, that which is Caesar's,
and to God that which is God's;
meaning that church and state should remain separate.
May we defend the freedoms of those we agree with and those we disagree with,
for freedom, religious freedom, is something that God wants for everyone.