April 18
246 : (probable date) Baptism of Cyprian in Carthage on Easter eve. He later became a bishop and a leading theologian and was known for his treatise On the Unity of the Catholic Church.
1506 : Laying of the foundation stone for the second building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by Pope Julius II.
1521 : German reformer Martin Luther declares that a biblical foundation supported the theological position of his “Ninety-Five Theses.”
1587 : Death of John Foxe in London, the author of The Actes and Monuments of the Church, better known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
1606 : Completion of the second building of St. Peter’s Basilica under Urban VIII. Thus, St. Peter’s becomes the largest church in Christendom today, with an overall length of 619 feet.
1753 : Sophronius is consecrated as the Bishop of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk. He is said to have had a vision as he became a monk, in which he was told, “When you become bishop, build a church dedicated to all saints,” which he could also really fulfill. He is considered a saint by the Orthodox church.
1784 : Thomas Charles is dismissed as curate of Llanymawddwy because of his support of Methodists. He was later influential in establishing the Welsh schools and the British and Foreign Bible Society.
1874 : The mortal remains of Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who had died in Africa in the previous year, are laid to rest at Westminster Abbey, London.
1894 : Nine hundred Sunday-school children from Syria, belonging to Islam and to different Christian denominations, assemble in Beirut to witness the unveiling of a column dedicated to female education, which the Christian missionary Sarah Huntington Smith had inaugurated on that site fifty-nine years earlier.
1905 : Eleven Catholics are martyred for their faith in Yanjing, Tibet. The murderers read out a message from the Dalai Lama, threatening the Christian converts with death if they do not return to Buddhism.
1909 : Mattiya Leonard Kamungu becomes the first Anglican priest of the Chewa people in the diocese of Nyasaland in central Africa. He tried to take a middle path between European paternalism and African expectations. He is said to have been poisoned to death and people started to consider him a martyr.
1929 : Demise of Eduard L. Arndt, pioneer Lutheran missionary, in Hankow, China,.
1930 : Frank C. Laubach, American pioneer linguist and a missionary in the Philippines, confessed in a letter, “After an hour of close friendship with God, my soul feels clean as new fallen snow.”
1989 : Attack on Catholic Christians at Youtong by the Chinese Communist forces, injuring many severely. They even pierced out the eyes of a nun, and took other Christians into captivity; two of them were later beaten to death.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org