August 25
325: The General Council of Nicea comes to a close. It was the first ecumenical conclave in the history of the Church attended by 300 bishops and established the Nicene Creed and set down the lunar formula for celebrating Easter.
1213: Archbishop Langton meets with several barons and the prelates of England to discuss King John’s despotic behaviour. The meeting reads into Henry I’s coronation charter, in which certain English rights are based and swears to uphold it, which forced King John to sign the Magna Carta two years later.
1560: Protestantism is formally adopted at the First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, following the decision of the  Scottish Parliament to accept a Calvinist confession of faith, and to reject papal jurisdiction over Scotland.
1649: Demise of Thomas Shepard, a famous Puritan preacher and author.
1817: Joseph Mohr begins his ministry as pastor of the St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria at the age of 25. Mohr and  the church organist Franz Gruber produced the Christmas carol, “Stille Nacht”/”Silent Night” on Christmas Eve 1818.
1867: Passing away of Michael Faraday, an innovator in the field of electricity and a devout Christian.
1936: Chinese authorities order all foreigners to leave Suchow, compelling Mildred Cable, Francesca French, and Eva French – the China Trio – to abandon their long-time mission work in the remote regions of China.
1940: Japanese Christian socialist Kagawa is arrested as a traitor.
1945: Execution of John Birch, a missionary, in China, from whom the conservative John Birch Society took its name.
1980: Passing away of Nicolai Michaelovitch Zernov, a Russian Orthodox expatriate, a teacher at Oxford and the author of many books about the Orthodox Church and Russian Christianity. He is the founder of the Anglican-Orthodox ecumenical group Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy:Â www.studylight.org