548: Pope Vigilius issues a Judicatum against the Three Chapters (1. the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, 2. the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril of Alexandria and in defense of Nestorius and 3. the letter of Ibas of Edessa to the Persian, Bishop Mari of Hardascir.) As a result of the Judicatum, the Bishops of Africa, Illyria, and Dalmatia withdrew from his communion. The African bishops anathematized him after two years and he then withdrew the Judicatum.
1079: Assassination of Bishop Stanislaus of Krakow, Poland, during the Holy Mass. King Boleslaw had considered him an enemy because he had excommunicated him for his many crimes.
1442: Repose of James the Abbot of Zheleznoborov, an ascetic monk. His monastery at Iron Pines was destroyed by Tatars in 1429. James and his monastic community escaped the attack, rebuilt the place, and fed the starving peasants. He had become famous by predicting the recovery of Sophia, the wife of the Great Prince Basil, when she was seriously ill, and by foretelling the safe birth of a son, which happened.
1506: Laying of the foundation stone for the new St. Peter’s Basilica under the patronage of Julius II. The construction went on till 1626.
1816: Richard Allen becomes the first African-American bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
1834: Birth of Marcus Dods, Scottish clergyman and biblical scholar, who with his works in New Testament studies helped popularize modern biblical scholarship in Great Britain.
1836: George Mueller, an English philanthropist, opens an orphanage on Wilson Street in Bristol. By 1875, this orphanage sheltered over 2,000 children.
1842: Death of John England, the first Roman Catholic bishop of Charleston, with his diocese spread over North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; he had planted numerous churches and left a well-organized clergy in these areas.
1861: Sarah Platt Haines Doremus becomes the first president of the Women’s Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands; she was later known as the “Mother of Missions.”
1878: Passing away of George Augustus Selwyn, first bishop of New Zealand in Lichfield, England.
1879: The full performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passion according to St. Matthew by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.
1931: Death of Kanakarayan Tiruselvam Paul, the first Indian-born National General Secretary of the National Council of YMCAs of India.
1933: Khotan rebels enter Yarkant, China and surround the Muslim converts to Christianity. The first one to be executed was Habil, a Christian teacher, who tried to protect his thirteen-year-old sister from rape. Before being killed he sketched a cross on a wall and above it a crown, saying, “First the cross, then the crown.”
1941 Thomas Merton, the French-born American Trappist monk, affirms in his Secular Journal “If we are willing to accept humiliation, tribulation can become, by God’s grace, the mild yoke of Christ, His light burden.”
1963: Pope John XXIII issues his encyclical Pacem in Terris dealing with the establishment of universal peace.
1967: The Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers International, which was formed in 1962in Dallas, changes its name to Christ for the Nations. This charismatic mission agency engages in fund-raising and support for church construction and the distribution of Christian literature worldwide.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org