Historical Writings

Today in Christian History

Thursday, June 20

404
Archbishop John Chrysostom leaves Constantinople under arrest, never to return. Authority for the date: Christian History 44 John Chrysostom (1994).
1529
Clement VII and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V signed the Peace of Barcelona, which ended attacks on Rome by the Lutheran armies.
1530
The first Diet at Augsburg gathers. The Augsburg Confession will be presented on the 25th. Authority for the date: Smith, Preserved. The Age of the Reformation. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920.
1542
Although not a bishop himself, Martin Luther consecrates Nicolaus von Amsdorf as bishop for Naumburg. Elector John Frederick had ousted the regularly elected Roman Catholic bishop, Julius von Pflug. Authority for the date: Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church.
1599
The Synod of Diamper reunited a native church in India with Rome. Discovered in 1498 by Portuguese explorers, this isolated pocket of worshipers traced their Christian origins back to the missionary efforts of the Apostle Thomas.
1734
The Schwenkfelders leave Rotterdam on what will prove to be a hard voyage to America. Authority for the date: https://schwenkfelderexilesociety.org/projects/conservation/
1776
Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: 'A Christian is not of hasty growth...but rather like the oak, the progress of which is hardly perceptible, but in time becomes a deep-rooted tree.'
1779
Birth of Dorothy Ann Thrupp, English devotional writer and author of the hymn, 'Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.'
1837
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain awaken eighteen-year-old Princess Victoria, a Christian, at five in the morning, to inform her she is now the Queen of England and Empress of its far-flung empire. Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.
1880
Death of Samuel R. Brown, missionary-educator to China and Bible translator in Japan. Authority for the date: Cary, Otis. A History of Christianity in Japan. New York: Revell, 1909.
1885
A band of Moravian missionaries landed on the shores of Alaska and founded the Bethel Mission. During the first year of their mission work among the, eskimoes, winter temperatures outside their makeshift housing plummeted to 50 degrees below zero!
1898
America’s Presbyterian General Assembly opens dialogue with Baptists and Methodists for organizing Protestant mission work in the Philippines, which have recently been ceded to the United States following the Spanish-American War. Authority for the date: Tuggy. The Philippine Churc
1907
Robert A. Torrey receives his DD from Wheaton. He will become a prominent evangelical leader and write the popular What the Bible Teaches. Authority for the date: Martin, Roger. R. A. Torrey: Apostle of Certainty. Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1976.
1926
Minnie Kennedy, mother of Aimee Semple McPherson, tries to end speculation about the evangelist's sudden disapperance by holding a memorial service for her at Angelus Temple. Three days later McPherson reappears with a tale of having been kidnapped. Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals.
1966
Death of Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and mathematician, who had been one of the first to recognize that Einstein's equations required an expanding universe with a beginning at a measurable time in the past. Eventually the so-called "Big Bang" theory will refine and improve similar concepts. Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.
1989
Death of Traian Dorz, a Romanian poet who served as leader of the Orthodox revival movement known as The Lord's Army. He had suffered imprisonment, harrassment, and restriction by a hostile government and hostile church authorities. Authority for the date: Spiridon, George. "The Literary Work of Traian Dorz in the Operation ‘Channel-82'."
1992
Militant Muslims gun down two Christian businessmen at Dairut, Assiut, and spray responding police officers with machine gun fire, killing two. Authority for the date: Bistawros, Baheg T. The Coptic Christians of Egypt Today Under Threat of Annihilation.
1999
All the Christian communions who share control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre agree to install a new exit door in the church. A century and a half earlier, dozens of Christian pilgrims had been trampled to death when fire broke out in the church. Authority for the date: http://orthodoxwiki.org/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre_(Jerusalem)
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