Today in Christian History
Cyril and Methodius Converted Slavs and Devised Their Alphabet (869)
“If I had a thousand pounds China should have it if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Hi...”
Taylor, Mrs. Howard. Hudson Taylor in Early Years: The Growth of a Soul.
A Prayer for Repentance (1878)
Enable me, O God, by the Holy Spirit’s help, truly to repent of all my sins. May I know and believe in the necessity of...
Events
270
(traditional date) Valentine, a priest in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, is beheaded along the Flaminian Way.
Authority for the date: Many popular sources.1009
Martyrdom of Bruno of Querfurt (also known as Boniface) and his associates by Lithuanians.
Authority for the date: Meier, Gabriel. “St. Bruno of Querfurt.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: R. Appleton, 1910.1532
Calvin acquires the degree of Licentiate (Bachelor) of Laws at Orleans.
Authority for the date: Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.1556
Protestant reformer Archbishop Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury is degraded from his office with humiliating ceremonies following the rise of the Roman Catholic Mary I to power. Cranmer had incurred the enmity of Mary years earlier when he granted King Henry VIII his divorce (annulment) from Mary’s mother Catherine.
Authority for the date: Peoples' Chronology.1568
Turks in Larissa, Greece, martyr the Orthodox monk Damian after days of torture, complaining that his teaching causes sales to drop on Sunday.
Authority for the date: http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com1596
Archbishop John Whitgift begins building a “hospital” (a home for the elderly and infirm) at Croydon from his own resources. He will also build and endow a free-school and a chapel. Over the entrance of the hospital will be the inscription: QUI DAT PAUPERI NON INDIGEBIT [Who gives to the poor will not lack]. Although charitable, he was a high churchman who favored ritual and consequently persecuted Puritans who opposed it.
Authority for the date: Chambers Book of Days, 18631805
Harvard confirms Henry Ware as Hollis Professor of Divinity. Because he is a Unitarian, denying the full divinity of Christ, Congregationalist teachers, loyal to the doctrine of the Trinity, will begin withdrawing from the school.
Authority for the date: oasis.lib.harvard.edu.1942
Chen Sulan is shipwrecked and captured by Japan’s secret police while fleeing Japanese invaders of China. A Methodist, he had fought against the Chinese government’s monopolistic sale of opium and had established an anti-opium clinic that rehabilitated close to seven thousand addicts. He had also been a founder of the Chinese YMCA. After World War II, he will set up a trust that funds the Scripture Union and Methodist groups.
Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.1953
Andrew Kagura of Kenya is martyred for his outspokenness against the Mau Mau (an alliance of Kenyan tribes that sought to throw off English rule by guerrilla warfare and targeted violence against Whites and Blacks who resisted their movement).
Authority for the date: Dewar, Diana. All for Christ.