Henri-Albert Thomine

Henri-Albert Thomine MEP (11 May 1896 – 21 March 1945) was a French Catholic missionary and bishop who served as Vicar Apostolic of Laos from 1944 until 1945 when he was executed by Japanese soldiers in Laos.

Biography Thomine was born on 11 May 1896 in Coutances, Cherbourg. He received his initial training at the Saint Paul Institute but was then unable to enter the seminary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society due to the outbreak of World War I. During the War he served as second lieutenant in the Artillery, and in 1919 was sent to North Russia as part of the Archangel campaign. On his return to France, he entered the seminary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, and was ordained a priest on 20 December 1924.

Thomine was sent to Laos on 20 April 1925 to work as a missionary. In December that year he was appointed curate in Tha Rae and then parish priest of Champasak in 1927. In 1940, when the government of Siam began persecuting Christians and burning their churches, Thomine together with other missionaries in the Northeast region were arrested and expelled, and sought refuge in French Indochina.

On 11 March 1945, Thomine, together with Mgr Gouin and Fr Thibaud, were arrested by the Japanese army following their invasion of Laos. After undergoing torture the three men were shot by Japanese soldiers near Nakai on 21 March 1945. Their bodies were found soon after and buried in makeshift graves by French soldiers. In 1946, the bodies were brought back to Thakhek for formal burial at the town's Catholic cemetery.