We always knew that the Church of India had martyrs. This incident confirms some were here too,” says Father Basil Lobo, parish priest of Sion’s Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, a Franciscan-run parish where one of the four commemorative services was held on April 9 to mark the 700th anniversary of the martyrdom of four friars. They travelled by land from Italy to Tbilisi, in Georgia, moved to Tabriz in Iran, and finally boarded a ship from Hormuz. They were headed to Kollam in Kerala, and eventually to China but unexpectedly landed in Thane. It’s here that they—priests Thomas of Tolentino and James of Padua, cleric Peter of Siena and a lay brother and linguist, Demetrius of Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia)—were martyred on April 9, 1321.

In some interpretations, palm fronds act as visual markers for martyrs.