April 15
297: The seven martyrs of Samos are imprisoned for refusing to offer sacrifices to pagan gods; they were kept in jail and had to starve there till they were brought before the Emperor Maximian in late June. He ordered the crucifixion of these skeleton like bodies.
428: [probable date] Nestorius conducts his first Easter service as patriarch of Constantinople. His Christology that the divine and human nature in Jesus remained separate, meaning Christ had two complete but distinct natures, Â later put him in trouble with Empress Pulcheria and with the Church.
1237: Repose of Richard Poore, the bishop of Salisbury. He was an opponent of pluralities (holding more than one church office at a time), and was deeply concerned with the care and teaching of children. He developed a system under which some children were trained to teach others the basic doctrine and prayer. He is, however, most remembered for his role in erecting the Salisbury Cathedral.
1531: Deadline given to the Protestants by Emperor Charles V to concede to his religious terms, resulting in Melanchthon’s Apology in response and forcing the Lutherans to organize a defense league.
1552: King Edward VI of England grants royal imprimatur to the new version of The Book of Common Prayer, the second during his reign.
1597: John Gerard, a Jesuit, is tortured in the Tower of London for refusing to betray the fellow Catholics, during the reign of queen Elisabeth who had executed over 200 Catholics. He however manages to escape.
1610: Demise of Robert Parsons in Rome, who was instrumental in establishing the ‘English Mission’ of the Society of Jesus and the author of the spiritual treatise The Christian Directory.
1632: Burial of George Calvert at St. Dunstan’s Church, England. He obtained the charter for the colony of Maryland, with the purpose of making it a home for the Roman Catholic refugees from England, who had to flee the persecution under the protestant reign.
1767: Demise of Elder Basil of Poiana Marului, who had renovated the Skete there (a settlement of Eastern Orthodox monks dependent on a parent monastery). He was renowned for his austerities, his focus on Scripture, and insistence on true repentance.
1791: Death of John Marrant in London, an African-American Methodist minister and missionary who had authored three books about his experiences as a preacher with the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion.
1817: American clergyman Thomas H. Gallaudet and a deaf Frenchman Laurent Clerc open the first American school for the deaf in Hartford, CT, called the American Asylum.
1872: While dealing with the legal case ‘Watson v. Jones,’ the U.S. Supreme Court opnes that a member of a religious organization may not appeal to secular courts against a decision of a church tribunal made within the area of its competence.
1879: Friedrich Kiel’s oratorio Christus, which he composed  in a Romantic style, is performed by the Oratorio Society, New York City.
1889: Passing away of the Roman Catholic priest Joseph Damien, a Belgian missionary to the lepers on Molokai in Hawaii. He had transformed the living conditions of the victims of leprosy, and died with the same disease.
1892: Birth of Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch devotional author, whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during World War II for hiding Jewish refugees in their house.
1919: Japanese soldiers lure twenty-five Christians into the church in the village of Cheamri, Korea, where they shoot at them and set the church on fire.
1950: Thirty-six leading members of the religious orders in Hungary send a protest letter to the Hungarian government against the abuses done to their orders by the government.
1957: Baba Ezra Dikki is posted to Majinga among the Kambari people of Niger State in Nigeria, whose mission continued there for 24 years. A student is said to have commented that Dikki’s heart was always broken by the things that he thought would break the heart of Jesus.
1970: Death of Wang Liming in a communist labor camp in China, where she had been imprisoned on false evidences. She had served as the head of the Chinese branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and was active in the Christian work and in women’s causes. While being arrested from her house, she declared, “I am carrying the cross of Jesus Christ.”
2011: The members of Lao People’s Army, assisted by the Vietnamese troops, rape and kill four Christian women of the Hmong tribe, forcing their families to watch it helplessly. During a huge march in peaceful protest a few days later, dozens were killed, hundreds wounded, and many arrested.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy:Â www.studylight.org