George Candidius (also recorded as Georgius Candidius) was a Dutch Reformed Church

Dutch Reformed Church

The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...

 missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 to Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 from 1627 to 1637. He was the first missionary to be stationed on the island. Sun-Moon Lake in central Taiwan was named Lake Candidius in his honour and is referred to thus in older English writings, although this name was not adopted by the local inhabitants and later fell into disuse.

In 1632 he married the daughter of Governor-General

Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies

The Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies represented the Dutch rule in the Dutch East Indies between 1610 and Dutch recognition of the independence of Indonesia in 1949.The first Governors-General were appointed by the Dutch East India Company...

 Jacques Specx

Jacques Specx

Jacques Specx was a Dutch merchant, who founded the trade on Japan and Korea in 1609. Jacques Specx received the support of William Adams to obtain extensive trading rights from the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu on August 24, 1609, which allowed him to establish a trading factory in Hirado on September...

. This Sara

Saartje Specx

Saartje Specx was the daughter of Jacques Specx, governor of the North Quarter of the Dutch East India Company's Asian trading empire, and a Japanese concubine. Saartje was born at the Dutch trading base on the island of Hirado. In 1629, aged 12, she was living at Batavia in Java under the...

, half Japanese, had caused a scandal in Batavia and Holland when a soldier was found making love with her in the private quarters of Spekx' predecessor and her foster father Jan Pietersz. Coen

Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was a officer of the Dutch East India Company in the early seventeenth century, holding two terms as its Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies....

, who was known for his harsh discipline

Discipline

In its original sense, discipline is referred to systematic instruction given to disciples to train them as students in a craft or trade, or to follow a particular code of conduct or "order". Often, the phrase "to discipline" carries a negative connotation. This is because enforcement of order –...

. She was whipped (after initially having been sentenced to drowning in a barrel) and the young soldier was beheaded.

After a year in residence in the region of Tayouan (present-day Tainan), Candidius commented regarding his missionary duties that: