Domitilla and Danny Hyams, the Joburg couple who could become saints

In a crypt in St Thérèse Catholic Church, close to the CBD of Edenvale, lie the remains of a couple who might just one day become Johannesburg’s first saints.

Domitilla and Danny Hyams died a little over a decade ago, but in that time, there has been growing support for the husband and wife to be canonised by the Catholic Church.

It is rare for couples to be made saints, but the Catholic Archdiocese of Johannesburg has taken up the cause. It is a process that might take decades, maybe even centuries.

Already, teams of investigators have been crisscrossing South Africa and the world in search of witnesses who knew the Hyams.

“We are not just looking for evidence of someone who was good in general. The [proposition] is that they have lived a life that we believe to be a holy life. What we are looking to prove are theological virtues, and here we are speaking about faith, hope and charity,” explains Father Phuti Makgabo, who is involved in the canonisation process and is a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Johannesburg.

It is a process that will involve a detailed scrutiny of lives lived and a wait for miracles. And in the end, there is no guarantee they will be declared saints. There could even be a situation where one is canonised and the other is not.

“Currently, what we are involved in is with the first phase, which we call the diocesan phase, meaning it is the work that is done at the diocesan level, where the person belonged,” explains Makgabo.

The couple are being investigated individually, and where possible, witnesses and documentation are being sought that pertain to all facets of their lives.

As Domitilla was born and raised in Italy, the team has had to travel to the country to gather information. The cost is carried by the Archdiocese of Johannesburg.

“We have interviewed around 25 to 30 people, and we are looking at interviewing at least 100 people in total,” says Makgabo, who hopes that this first phase will be wrapped up later in 2026.

The next phase will see the Archdiocese’s findings sent to the Vatican, where they will be evaluated.

Much of the life of heroic virtue the church is investigating is tied to a place about five minutes’ drive from St. Thérèse Catholic Church.

The Little Eden Society is an NGO that looks after children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Domitilla started Little Eden in 1967, 20-odd years after she married her husband.

The Hyams met in war. Danny, who was born in Johannesburg, joined the South African army at the outbreak of World War 2 and was sent to fight in the Western Desert.

He, with tens of thousands of other South Africans, was captured at the Battle of Tobruk. As a prisoner of war, he was sent to Italy.

In 1943, the Italian government surrendered, and Danny used the opportunity to escape from his POW camp. But the Germans quickly regained control and propped up a new pro-Nazi Italian government, and for the next 20 months, Danny was forced into hiding. It was during this time that he met a 25-year-old Domitilla in the town of Albenza.

When the war ended in 1945, Danny proposed to Domitilla. She agreed, but first he had to return to South Africa to complete his studies.

Then, in 1947, he returned to Albenza, where the couple were married, and Danny took his new bride home to South Africa.

Years later, while Domitilla was part of a Bible study group, she noticed the emotional, psychological and financial drain a severely disabled child was having on one of the members.

Soon after Little Eden was born, Domitilla began caring for three handicapped girls. Driving her was a vision she claimed she had of Jesus Christ, who appeared to her without hands.

“She believed the vision meant that we are to act as Jesus’s hands here on Earth, for the care of the residents,” says the CEO of Little Eden, Ann Coetzee.

From the three initial residents, the facility grew as the couple acquired more properties. Today, Little Eden cares for 300 children and adults with intellectual disabilities across two facilities. One of these facilities is in Bapsfontein on the East Rand and the other in Edenvale.

“Our oldest resident is 71, and our youngest resident is four,” says Coetzee.

“Here you are caring for someone’s child, someone’s sibling, someone’s family member, and you’re caring for them until they pass, and that is a very humbling experience.”

About two-thirds of the residents were abandoned before they came to Little Eden.

And those who do come are there because of genetic conditions, the effects of foetal alcohol syndrome, trauma and sometimes abuse. Some arrive carrying the hard trauma of their earlier lives.

One patient was used as a sex worker and pimped by her mother. Another has scars from being burnt after her parents tried to kill her by setting her alight.

It costs about R1.2-million a week to run the organisation, and they go through two-and-a-half tons of laundry a day. Funding comes mainly from donations.

“When you look at it in this context, what Domitilla and Danny Hyams did was so incredible. Because for many people, they find it quite disturbing seeing something like this, because we don’t realise the extent to which the human body can actually be deformed,” says Coetzee.

Domitilla died in January 2011 and was followed by her husband in December 2012. They were buried in Bapsfontein, but with the canonisation process, the Archdiocese of Johannesburg had them exhumed and interned in that marble crypt in St. Thérèse Catholic Church.

Currently, the couple carry the title Servant of God, but this will change to Venerable if it is decided that there is sufficient evidence that they lived a life of heroic virtue.

As Domitilla and Danny were not martyrs, proof is required of the occurrence of a miracle associated with them.

“These are usually medical miracles, but other kinds may happen,” explains Makgabo. “In Mozambique, some years ago, there was a miracle where people were locked in the church for about three days without water. The only water they had was the water from the baptismal font, and there is no way of explaining why this water was not exhausted after three days.”

The church keenly scrutinises such inexplicable occurrences. So far, says Makgabo, there have been no miracles attributed to the couple. An attribution of a miracle will earn them the title of Blessed.

If Domitilla and Danny do eventually become canonised, they will be the first couple in Africa to become saints. Still, there is no guarantee and sometimes, Makgabo points out, the investigation stalls and centuries can pass before it begins to move again.

Yet as the process continues, at St. Thérèse Catholic Church, the marble crypt has become a site of pilgrimage, a sign that here on Earth there is support for the couple in their journey to perhaps becoming Joburg’s first saints. DM