Innocent Fan

Innocent Fan was a man aged 48, a bannerman who served as choir director at the Mission. He was killed on 11 June 1900 (old style; 24 June in the new), during the Boxer Rising. Crippled, he was thrown into a well, and the Boxers pelted him with stones. The same list also names members of his family: wife Helen; son Eumenius; daughters Sophia and Nadezhda.

The bannermen were the men enrolled in the banners, the military and administrative divisions of the Qing dynasty. His name stands in the list of the 222 Orthodox Christians killed in 1900, drawn up in 1904 by the Brotherhood of the Orthodox Church in China, on the testimony of relatives, neighbours and witnesses.

In 1902 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church allowed the local veneration of the Chinese martyrs, and in 2016 its Council of Bishops blessed their veneration throughout the Russian Church. They are commemorated together on 11 June (old style).