April 25
62 Death of Mark, the Evangelist, while imprisoned in Alexandria in the eighth year of Nero, as per Vetus Martyrologium Romanum (an old Roman catalogue of martyrs).
799 Pope Leo III is attacked by armed men, who tried to tear out his eyes and to root out his tongue.
1449 The ineffectual Council of Basel comes to an end.
1479 Passing away of Sylvester of Obnorsk, a Russian Orthodox hermit who had lived only on roots and bark. Later he established a monastery.
1530 The Augsburg Confession, the first official summary of the Lutheran faith written principally by Philip Melanchthon, is presented at the Diet of Worms.
1564 John Calvin, the reformer of Geneva, dictates his last will and testament to a notary.
1595 Demise of Italian poet Torquato Tasso in the convent of St. Onofrio, on the same day on which he was supposed to receive a laurel from the Pope in recognition of his epic poems, of which “Jerusalem Delivered” was the most famous.
1735 Demise of Samuel Wesley, curate, author, and the father of John and Charles Wesley, the Methodist revival leaders.
1792 Birth of John Keble, English clergyman and poet, who founded the Oxford Movement in 1833, and who authored the hymn, “Sun of My Soul, Thou Savior Dear.”
1800 Demise of William Cowper, English poet, who had left a great spiritual literary legacy, including three enduring hymns, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “Oh, For a Closer Walk with God” and “There is a Fountain,” in spite suffering under lifelong depression.
1858 Consecration of Jean-Pierre Augustin Marcellin Verot as the first Roman Catholic bishop of Florida, who later came to be known as “the rebel bishop” for his support of the South during the American Civil War.
1879 Consecration of J. B. Lightfoot, a renowned English New Testament scholar, as Bishop of Durham; he had left Cambridge to devote the remaining years to church administration.
1912 Repose of Christian Abraham Ackah, a major player in establishing the Seventh Day Adventist work in Ghana, opening schools and churches.
1917 Priestly Ordination of Paul Sasaki in the Anglican Church in Japan, who later became the bishop of Nippon Sei Ko Kei, an independent church organization within the Anglican Communion, and had to suffer imprisonment for having refused to bring Nippon Sei Ko Kei under the authority of a government-controlled church coalition.
1929 The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America is organized in Detroit, partly as a reaction to the insurgence of Communism in Eastern Europe. Its parishes were under jurisdiction of the Patriarchate in Bucharest, Hungary, till that point.
1982 Israel returns the Sinai Peninsula, which it had captured in 1967, to Egypt, as part of the 1979 Camp David Accord.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org