Blessed Isidore Bakanja

Blessed Isidore Bakanja, also known as "the Martyr of Congo," was born around 1887 in northeast Republic of the Congo. At the age of 18, he was baptized on May 6, 1906, after receiving instruction from Trappist missionaries. Isidore worked as an assistant stone mason for white colonists in what was then the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire or simply the Congo.