Historical Writings

Gregory XI steps over his protesting father to return the papacy from Avignon to Rome.

Calvin receives an uproarious welcome on his return to Geneva, whose authorities had banished him three years earlier.

Death of Meletius Pegas, who, as Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria, had endeavored to reunite the Greek and Coptic churches. A fierce opponent of Roman Catholicism, he had nonetheless accepted the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Death in Basel of John Buxtorf the Elder, an eminent Christian scholar of Hebrew language, writings, and customs. His work had been shaped by his desire to convert Jews. Basel authorities once fined him 100 gulden because his interest in Jewish ceremonies had led him to attend a circumcision.

The Massachusetts General Court banished Separatist preacher Roger Williams, 32, for criticizing the Massachusetts Bay Company charter and for perpetually advocating a separation of church and state.

Robert Moffat is ordained and set apart with eight other missionaries to work in South Africa. He becomes a notable translator and the father-in-law of David Livingstone.

Samuel Leigh, Methodist missionary to Australia, lays the foundation stone of a chapel at Windsor, New South Wales, one of thirteen preaching places in a circuit he establishes.

William Walford's hymn, "Sweet Hour of Prayer," first appeared in print in the "New York Observer." Walford (1772-1850), a blind lay preacher, had written the poem three years earlier in the village of Coleshill, England.

Having recently suffered a nervous breakdown, Foursquare Gospel founder Aimee Semple McPherson, 40, entered an ill-fated marriage to David Hutton. (They divorced four years later.)

The Southern Baptist General Convention of California was organized at Shafter by representatives of 14 congregations attending an associational meeting of the denomination.

Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth wrote in a letter: 'God, according to 2 Cor. 5:19, reconciled the world to himself, not himself to the world.'

Adano Andrew Tuye begins studies at the All Nations Christian College in England. He will be the first person from Kenya's nomadic tribes to become a bishop in the Anglican Church and will translate the entire Bible into the Borana/Oromo language.

Qatar allows the first public Catholic mass since Islam conquered the region in the seventh century. Subsequently Qatar will authorize public worship by five other Christian denominations.