April 23
33: Jesus Christ is believed to have been raised from the dead on this day, marking this date the very first Easter.
685: Dedication of a new church at the monastery of Jarrow in England. The monastery had an association with Biscop Baducing and the Venerable Bedeand and is still functional.
997: Martyrdom of Adalbert of Prague at the hands of a pagan priest. As the bishop of Prague, he had tried to abolish heathen customs and to bring in moral reforms; facing repulsion, he devoted himself to mission work in Germany and Poland. He is also remembered for having baptized Stephen of Hungary.
1586: Birth of Martin Rinkart, German clergyman, Latin scholar and a prolific writer, who penned the German hymn which begins with, “Nun danket alle Gott…” (“Now Thank God, Ye All”).
1625: Demise of Maurice de Nassau, Prince of Orange, who had favored strict Calvinists over Arminians.
1702: Repose of Margaret Fell Fox, English Quaker leader and a founding member of the Religious Society of Friends.
1789: Publication of the first issue of “The Courier de Boston,” believed to have been the first Catholic newspaper in America, and which existed only until October 15th of the same year.
1849: Arrest of Fyodor Dostoevsky on accusation of plotting to overthrow the Russian government. A firing squad sent him later to Siberia where found his comfort in the Bible, which also helped Dostoevsky to include Christian themes in his writings.
1960: Demise of Toyohiko Kagawa, Japanese Christian Socialist.
1968: The 10.3 million-member Methodist and the 750 thousand-member Evangelical United Brethren churches join together in Dallas to form the United Methodist Church, making it the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
1982: Death of Cameron Townsend, a missionary linguist and founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, one of the world’s largest mission agencies, in North Carolina.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org