April 20
1441 : Pope Eugenius IV issues the bull “Etsi non dubitemus” during the Council of Florence (1438-45), asserting the supremacy of the pope over the Councils.
1479 : Passing away of Alexander of Oshevensk, who had founded an Orthodox monastery, experienced miracles, and was a renowned spiritual counsellor.
1529 : The term “Protestant” comes to be first applied to the participants of the Reformation at the Second Diet of Speyer. The term was taken from the Protestatio, a statement by the reformers challenging the imperial position on religion.
1534 : Execution of Elizabeth Barton, the “Nun of Kent,” who had prophesied that King Henry VIII would die soon after his secret marriage to Anne Boleyn; Henry was 41 and Anne 31, and he died at 56. She was a holy woman, who encouraged pilgrimages and prayers to Mary and strongly opposed the Lutheran Reformation.
1558 : Demise of Johannes Bugenhagen, a leading Lutheran reformer, a professor at the University of Wittenberg, and the pastor at the city church there. Bugenhagen had helped Luther in translating the Bible and had also translated the Bible into common man’s German himself.
1676 : Repose of Baptist minister John Clarke, a founding father of Rhode Island, and the patriot who obtained the colony’s charter from King Charles II in 1663.
1718 : Birth of David Brainerd, colonial American missionary to the Indians of New England, whose journal influenced hundreds to become missionaries after his death at the age of 29.
1826 : Birth of Erastus Johnson, American hymn-writer and a lifelong student of the Bible, who authored the hymn, “O Sometimes the Shadows are Deep”.
1884 : Pope Leo XIII issues his encyclical “Humanum Genus” against the atheistical and anti-religious Masonic order in Europe.
1943 : Germans Nazi troops massacre the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland.
1962 : Karl Barth, a renowned theologian, is featured on the cover page of Time magazine.
1987 : The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is organized at Columbus, OH, making it the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S., with the merger of three smaller Lutheran bodies.
1988 : Wilson Rajil Sabiya, a Lutheran theologian, alerts General Ibrahim Babangida, the President and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in a letter about the Muslim efforts to make Nigeria an Islamic country by infiltrating into the police force.
2001 : The Peruvian Air Force shoots down a private aircraft carrying missionaries, killing Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org