Historical Writings

Muslims in Spain release Eulogius, a supporter of a number of recent Christian martyrs, but require sureties that he will remain in Córdoba. Eventually they will execute him because of his anti-Islamic agitation.

Through publication of "Regula Bullata," Pope Honorius III formally authorized the "Regula Prima," a settled rule of organization and administration for the Franciscan order.

Louis IX of France is crowned at Rheims. Because of the sanctity of his life, he will be declared a saint in 1297, twenty-seven years after his death.

Death of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who had been Lord Chancellor of England. He says, "If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs."

Death of Renaissance Italian composer and clergyman Claudio Monteverdi, who served as maestro di cappella at St Mark's Cathedral, Venice. An innovator, he developed techniques that flourished in baroque music. He wrote an opera that is still produced, secular madrigals, and many sacred pieces, including several serene masses.

The Massachusetts General Court issued a call for local pastors to learn the dialects of neighboring Indian tribes, as an aid toward converting them to the Christian faith.

Anglican hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: 'He knows our sorrows, not merely as He knows all things, but as one who has been in our situation, and who, though without sin himself, endured when upon earth inexpressibly more for us than He will ever lay upon us.'

In Connecticut, Lemuel Haynes, 27, was licensed to preach in the Congregational Church, becoming the first black minister to be certified by a predominantly white denomination. Five years later, in 1785, Haynes was ordained pastor of a church in Torrington, CT, also making him the first black minister to pastor a white church.

Indians massacre missionary-physician Marcus Whitman and twelve others at Walla Walla. Immigrants had brought measles. Resentment against white incursions came to a head: the natives accused Whitman and other missionaries of black magic and killed them.

Death in Rochester, New York, of Augustus H. Strong, known for his work in systematic theology.

Death of Agnes Ozman, the first student who had spoken in tongues at Charles Parham's Kansas school in 1901, sparking the Pentecostal movement.

A convention begins in Cleveland at which The Federal Council of Churches in America merges with seven other Protestant organizations to become the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

The Vatican announces that Archbishop Aloysius Stepanic, under house arrest in Yugoslavia, will be made a cardinal. This infuriates Tito's communist regime which protests vigorously, having convicted Stepanic of war crimes and collaboration with Nazis. The ceremony making Stepanic a cardinal will nonetheless take place on January 12, 1953.

Chinese missionary John Ding and his wife Zhu Yiming are captured by Communists in Tibet where they had been evangelizing. They are incarcerated. Zhu will die before her husband and he will not be notified for three years. Then he will be given her clothes and will find the toes of her shoes and the knee area of her dress are worn out from much prayer on her knees. Released after twenty-three years in prison, Ding will return to preaching and will remarry.

In Nagpur, India, six church bodies -- the Anglicans, the United Church of Northern India, the Baptists, the Methodists, the Church of the Brethren and the Disciples of Christ -- merged to form the Church of India.

Jewish settlers hack to death with axes the monk Philoumenos (Sophocles Hasapis), whom the Orthodox Church had appointed as igumen (abbot) of their monastery at Jacob's Well.