Nicholas Pieck

Nicholas Pieck, known in Dutch as Niclaes Pieck or Claes Pieck, was born at Gorinchem, then commonly called Gorkum, in the County of Holland, in 1534. Traditional accounts give the date as 29 August. He was the son of John Pieck, a well-to-do burgher of the town, and of Henrica Clavia. He grew up in a Catholic family during the decades in which Protestant teaching, especially Calvinism, was gaining ground in the Low Countries under Habsburg rule. He received a classical and theological education, studying at 's-Hertogenbosch and at the University of Louvain. In the later 1550s he entered the Order of Friars Minor at 's-Hertogenbosch. After profession and ordination to the priesthood he was assigned to pastoral and conventual work and was eventually named guardian of the Franciscan house in Gorinchem, his native town.

In that office he was remembered as a preacher of more than ordinary ability, a devout priest, and a superior who tried to hold his community to Franciscan observance. He was especially associated with preaching on the Eucharist and with care for the poor. The political and religious situation in Holland deteriorated as the revolt against Philip II of Spain unfolded. In 1572 the Watergeuzen, Calvinist sea beggars operating in the name of the Prince of Orange, seized a number of towns in Holland after the capture of Brielle in April of that year. Gorinchem fell to them toward the end of June. The new masters arrested the Franciscans of the local friary, including their guardian Nicholas Pieck, as well as several secular priests and members of other religious orders who had taken shelter with the friars.

The prisoners were subjected to mockery and violence and were pressed to reject Catholic doctrines, above all the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and the jurisdiction of the pope. Pieck, as the most prominent of the Franciscans, was treated as a leader of the group. He exhorted the others not to yield. According to the early narratives, members of his own family sought to induce him to recant or to separate himself from the rest in order to save his life; he declined. The captives were taken by boat to Brielle, which was then commanded by William II de la Marck, Lord of Lumey. There the interrogations continued. Those who would not satisfy their captors on the disputed points of faith were condemned.

On 9 July 1572 nineteen of them were hanged in a turf-shed at a ruined monastic site near Brielle. Nicholas Pieck was among the dead. Catholic reports of the execution describe it as prolonged and brutal; the bodies were left unburied for a time and then thrown into a ditch. The nineteen became known as the Martyrs of Gorkum. Their cult spread among Catholics in the southern Netherlands and in the Franciscan order. They were beatified by Pope Clement X on 24 November 1675 and canonized by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1867. The Church keeps their feast on 9 July. Nicholas Pieck is venerated as a saint, particularly by Franciscans and by Dutch Catholics, as a priest who chose death rather than deny the Eucharist and the unity of the Church under the pope.