April 27
304: Pollio, a Christian from the town of Gibalea (later a city in Hungary), who declares before a judge that he is a church reader, is burned to death.
1537: Publication of Geneva’s first Protestant catechism compiled by John Calvin and/or by fellow French reformer Guillaume Farel, based on Calvin’s “Institutes.”
1570: Pope Pius V issues a bull against Queen Elizabeth of England, excommunicating her for heresy, depriving her of her title to the crown, and forbidding the catholics from obeying her. The queen however, retained her throne and was victorious over an attempted invasion by Catholic Spain, and became one of England’s greatest monarchs.
1667: English poet John Milton sells out the copyright of his religious epic “Paradise Lost” for ten English pounds.
1697: Fénelon submits his book Explication des Maximes des Saints to the judgement of Rome after it came under criticism from King Louis XIV and the bishops of France. Rome later condemned its Quietist teachings.
1775: Demise of Peter Bohler, the Moravian missionary, who had encountered John Wesley before his conversion, imprinting within him the later Methodist characteristics of crisis conversion, joyful assurance of God’s acceptance and a Christian lifestyle of self-surrendering faith.
1832:Â Formation of the American Baptist Home Mission Society in New York City, which during its first 15 years built 14,426 churches and sent out 1,116 missionaries.
1930: Daniel Grigoryevich Bykov, an Orthodox priest, is sentenced to death by the Soviets who shot him three days later.
1931: Soviets arrest the Orthodox clergyman Elijah Fyodorovich Yemelyanov, sentencing him to death a month later and shooting him in June.
1946: The Orthodox Church of Ethiopia unanimously elects Meliktu Welde Mariam as a bishop, who was later ordained as its first patriarch (Patriarch Tewoflos) in Ethiopia in 1971. (Previously the patriarchs were always ordained in Egypt.)
1950: The British government officially recognizes the modern state of Israel.
1955: Wanda Fricke, a nurse, arrives in New Guinea and opens a medical mission work for the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.
1960: As the police in Nowa Huta in Poland try to remove a cross, women protest against it and men join to protect the women from police brutality, leading to a riot in which the Communist headquarters is set on fire. This religious protest forced the Communists to grant a measure of religious tolerance to Poland. Later, the Polish church was instrumental in bringing down the Communist regime.
2011: A court in Khabarovsk in Russia bans the activities by the Grace Pentecostal Church, alleging psychological manipulation of the believers.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy:Â www.studylight.org