Why tallies of Christian martyrs vary so widely.
About 7 out of 10 Christians killed worldwide for their faith last year came from just one country: Nigeria.
So claimed a persecution report from Jubilee Campaign this spring. The report turned heads for its numbers, including almost 1,000 martyrs in Nigeria alone. Then, weeks later, Vatican officials warned the United
Nations that the worldwide Christian death toll in 2012 was actually 100,000.
The disparate calculations called attention to martyrdom and how researchers measure it. Open Doors' tally of 1,200 Christian martyrs in 2012 aligns more or less with Jubilee's count. By contrast, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) agrees with the Vatican on a number roughly 100 times that. (Religious freedom watchdogs commonly cite both figures.)
Much of the discrepancy hinges on how researchers define martyr, and how closely they double-check each death. Read more
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