Steadfast belief in Christ alone as the Alpha and the Omega, and that God's Son, the Word Jesus Christ will endure forever, give martyrs strenth to persevere unto death.

Religious persecution, though by no means confined to Christians, has been a consistent part of the story of Christianity. Throughout the modern era, hundreds of thousands have become martyrs. Persecutions have occurred in France, Japan, Korea, and China; between 1895-1910 thousands of Armenian Christians were massacred under Turkish rule. In Germany the Confessing Church and others who resisted Hitler were persecuted; and many, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were killed. In the Soviet Union the government tried for decades to destroy Christianity; in El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed for his beliefs. In the United States the death of Martin Luther King Jr. is widely recognized as a martyrdom. In some parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, persecution continues. According to one estimate there were 160,000 Christian martyrs a year before the close of the twentieth century.