Historical Writings

(probable date) After torture aimed at getting them to renounce their faith during the Valerian persecution, James and Marian are beheaded in a North Africa gorge.

The bones of St. Sava of Serbia are removed from the Cathedral of the Holy Forty Martyrs in Trnovo to the monastery Mileseva in southern Serbia, where they will remain for three hundred and sixty years until the Ottoman Turks dig them up and burn them.

Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, 61, finished the altarpiece for St. John's Church in Ghent, Belgium. Van Eyck's work is noted for its descriptive realism and intensive color.

Forty thousand mercenaries, hired by Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, sacked the city of Rome, destroying two-thirds of the houses. They butchered clergy and laity alike, and forced Clement VII to flee, disguised as a gardener. It was the end of the golden age of the Renaissance.

Twenty-year-old Pierre Viret, beginning a reformation work in his home town of Orbe, Switzerland, preaches his first sermon. He will later extend his preaching to France, where he will be a major player in the creation of the Huguenot movement.

King Henry VIII of England orders that an English-language Bible be placed in every church in the nation.

The Canons of Dort, a Calvinist response to the Arminian Remonstrance, are promulgated in Dort's Great Church before a large congregation.

Death of Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who inspired the Catholic reform movement known as Jansenism. Opposed to the teachings of the Jesuits and of Thomas Aquinas, he had adopted Augustine's doctrine of irresistible grace, but his views on grace and predestination were condemned by the church.

Death in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, of William Tennent. Born in Ireland, he had migrated to America where he operated a seminary in a log cabin, infusing his pupils with such evangelistic zeal that they became the leaders of the Great Awakening. They would found many influential frontier schools in their turn.

Birth of John T. Grape, American Methodist layman. He composed a number of hymn tunes during his life, including ALL TO HRIST, to which we sing today, "Jesus Paid It All."

Death in Loretto, Pennsylvania, of Dmitri Gallitzin, a Catholic missionary known as the “Apostle of the Alleghanies.”

In a Commemoration Day sermon, Dr. William Selwyn, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and a former Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, reminds his hearers that the college is celebrating "its seventh jubilee," and pleads earnestly for the erection of a larger chapel. His plea will be successful.

A bandit army attacks Qinzhou City and one of the soldiers splits open the skull of thirty-three-year-old Wu Baoying, a Christian doctor who, after years of service with the China Inland Mission, founded the local hospital. His last words, when discovered the next morning in a pool of blood, are "The Lord is with us."

Responding to a letter received from a child, English pologist C. S. Lewis wrote: 'God knows quite well how hard we find t to love Him more than anyone or anything else, and He won't be Angry with us as long as we are trying. And He will help us.'

Pope John XXIII canonizes Martin de Porres (1579-1639), a mixed-race associate of the Dominican Order, remembered for his humility and for his charity in nursing the sick.

The Rev. Donald E. Pelotte, 41, was ordained in Gallup, New Mexico -- the first American Indian to be made a Roman Catholic ishop in the U.S.