Manuel Ruiz López and 10 companions

During the summer of 1860, the civil war between Druze and Maronites in Mount Lebanon degenerated in Damascus into a massacre of the Christians of the Bab Touma district: several thousand people were killed and the Christian quarter was set on fire. During the night of July 9 to 10, armed assailants entered the Franciscan Saint Paul convent, where the religious and some of the faithful had taken refuge. The guardian Manuel Ruiz López, seeing death approaching, ran to the tabernacle to consume the Holy Species in order to avoid their profanation, and was then killed near the altar. The other Franciscans and the three Massabki brothers were in turn massacred. According to the sources of the cause, the Massabki brothers were offered their lives if they would embrace Islam; Francis Massabki refused, declaring that one could take his money and his life, but not his faith. All died confessing their attachment to Christ. Their martyrdom, accomplished in hatred of the faith (in odium fidei), made them the "martyrs of Damascus."

The religious motive for their death is at the heart of the cause: the eleven were killed in hatred of the faith, in a context where apostasy would have saved their lives. The Franciscans fell in the exercise of their ministry and their consecrated life, their guardian dying after having sought to preserve the Eucharist from profanation. The Massabki brothers, simple Maronite laypeople united with the Latin parish, illustrate that the supreme testimony is not reserved for religious: a prosperous merchant and father of a family, Francis Massabki was renowned for his generosity and devotion, and he preferred to lose his goods and his life rather than his faith. The constancy of these men, refusing to abjure under threat, was held to be an exemplary testimony. Their reputation as martyrs took root early in the memory of the Church, both among the Franciscans of the Holy Land and in the Maronite community, which venerated them as intercessors well before the official recognition of their cause.

The group was beatified by Pope Pius XI on October 10, 1926, at St. Peter's Basilica, under the title of Manuel Ruiz López and companions, martyrs of Damascus. The cause subsequently led to canonization: Pope Francis presided over an ordinary consistory on July 1, 2024, which approved the inscription of the eleven martyrs in the catalogue of saints, in accordance with the procedure applicable to ancient martyrs, which dispenses with the requirement of a miracle. The canonization took place on October 20, 2024, in St. Peter's Square, during Mission Sunday (World Mission Day); during the same celebration, Pope Francis also inscribed other saints, among whom were Giuseppe Allamano, Marie-Léonie Paradis, and Elena Guerra. The liturgical feast of the martyrs of Damascus is celebrated on July 10, the anniversary date of their martyrdom.

The martyrs of Damascus hold a unique place in the Christian memory of the Middle East: they unite in a single testimony Latin religious who came from Europe and indigenous Maronite laypeople, a sign of the communion between the Churches of the East and the West. Their cult is particularly vibrant within the Franciscan family and the Custody of the Holy Land, which preserves the memory of the Saint Paul convent in Damascus, as well as in the Maronite Church, which venerates the Massabki brothers as intercessors and models of lay fidelity. The 2024 canonization, which took place as Syria was emerging from years of war, was received by church leaders as a sign of hope and an encouragement for the tried Christian communities of the East. Through these eleven figures, the Church reminds us that faith can be attested to the point of bloodshed by consecrated persons just as by simple believers.