Today in Christian History
ARCHDEACON PAUL OF ALEPPO WROTE ABOUT HIS FASCINATING TRAVELS (1647)
“The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profe...”
Pope Paul VI, promulgator, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), 21 November 1964, 2:15, in “The Holy See, Archive, Documents of the Vatican II Council, Constitutions” www.vatican.va/ archive/par_en.htm (Vatican City: Roman Catholic Church, 1999). Quoted in History of Christian Doctrine.
Christ showed how to handle temptation (1890)
You shall not put the Lord your God to the test— Matt.4:7 (ESV). Let these sayings of Christ sink down into your e...
Events
695
Pope Sergius II consecrates Willibrord as bishop. Willobrord will take the gospel to the Friesians of Northern Europe, establishing many churches.
Authority for the date: Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo Saxon England.1430
The Burgundians sell Joan of Arc to the English.
Authority for the date: http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/joan.htm.1526
Francis I, King of France, sends the Provost of Paris to forcibly remove De Berquin from the conciergerie where he is held by enemies of the Reformation. De Berquin seeks reformation without rupture from Rome, but three years later his enemies will use an absence of the king to burn De Berquin to death.
Authority for the date: Baird, Henry Martyn. The Rise of the Huguenots. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880.1638
A general assembly at Glasgow abolishes the episcopal form of church government and puts the Presbyterian form in its place.
Authority for the date: McFeeters, J.C. Sketches of the Covenanters.1647
Paul of Aleppo is ordained an Archdeacon in the Syrian Melkite church. He will be known for his chronicle The Travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, an important source of information for events of his time. He will also write a History of the Patriarchs of Antioch.
Authority for the date: Wikipedia.1706
Rev. John Williams returns to a hero’s welcome in Massachusetts on this day, one of the last released of 109 captives taken from Deerfield two and a half years earlier. He will write a bestseller The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion.
Authority for the date: www.memorialhall.mass.edu.1866
Tiyo Soga, an African Christian leader, completes a translation of Pilgrim’s Progress into the Xhosa language.
Authority for the date: Williams, Donovan. Umfundisi: A Biography of Tiyo Soga. Cape Town: Lovedale Press, 1978.1873
Pope Pius IX condemns the “Old Catholic” movement that rejects the decree of papal infallibility, excommunicating by name their bishop, Joseph Humbert Reinkins, and all other adherents of the movement, labeling them “miserable sons of perdition.”
Authority for the date: www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/p9etsimu.htm.1899
President McKinley tells five visiting clergymen he had not wanted the Philippines, but since they had come into the care of the United States, he had gone down on his knees and prayed to Almighty God for guidance what to do with them. The answer he believed was “that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.”
Authority for the date: Christian History 99 (2008).1920
Wang Ming-Dao writes out a list of his sins, vows to leave them, and receives assurance of forgiveness. He has already been a Christian for many years.
Authority for the date: Lyall, Leslie T. Three of China’s Mighty Men. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980.1953
Newspaper headlines around the world announce that the Piltdown Man is a hoax, to the immense satisfaction of those Christians who had rejected the theory of evolution.
Authority for the date: www.clarku.edu.1957
Oswald Smith of Canada begins preaching in a stadium in Santiago, Chile, with five thousand in attendance, resulting in more than a thousand inquirers. Subsequent meetings will see attendance rise to fifteen thousand.
Authority for the date: Orr, Evangelical Awakenings in Latin America1964
The third session of Vatican II approves a “Decree on Ecumenism” that declares both Catholics and Protestants to blame for past divisions and calls for dialogue, not derision, in the future.
Authority for the date: www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/1979
Death in Beijing of Zhao Zichen, who developed an influential but anti-supernatural theology and eventually lost his faith entirely, but not before suffering for it at both the hands of the Japanese and the Communists.
Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.1984
Rev. David Ernesto Fernandez is murdered in El Salvador. He had served ten congregations in the eastern portion of his country and was greatly beloved by fellow Christians.
Authority for the date: www.lutheranhistory.org.1988
Richard Foster and some of his friends create Renovaré, an organization to equip people to become deeply formed followers of Jesus.
Authority for the date: Christian History 129