#St John Ogilivie

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint John Ogilvie

1579 - 1615

Feast Day: March 10

Patron of Scotland

Saint John Ogilvie was a Scottish Roman Catholic Jesuit martyr, born into a wealthy respected Calvinist family in 1579.  In the midst of the religious controversies and turmoil that engulfed Europe of that era, he decided to become a Roman Catholic. He joined the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest in Paris in 1610. After ordination, he returned to Scotland in November 1613 disguised as a horse trader named John Watson, to minister to the few remaining Roman Catholics in the Glasgow area where it was illegal to preach or otherwise endorse Roman Catholicism. In 1614, he was betrayed and arrested in Glasgow, convicted of high treason for refusing to accept the King's spiritual jurisdiction, suffered terrible tortures and was hanged. 

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