February 17
661: Death of Finan, bishop of Lindisfarne (one of the islands at the North Sea), who had strived to preserve Celtic customs against Roman influence.
1600: Giordano Bruno, a Pantheist philosopher and occult practitioner, is burned alive by secular authorities, after being handed over by the Roman Inquisition, following an eight year long investigation and trial.
1741: George Whitefield, English revivalist, exhorted in a letter: ‘Be content with no degree of sanctification. Be always crying out, “Lord, let me know more of myself and of thee.”‘
1816: Birth of Edward Hopper, American Presbyterian clergyman, who is remembered as author of the hymn, “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me.”
1821: Levi Parsons arrives in Jerusalem and becomes the first Protestant missionary to found a permanent mission there.
1889: Billy Sunday, baseball player-turned-evangelist, preach for the first time in Chicago. He was noted for his strong fundamentalist views and for opposing scientific evolution. More than 100 million are estimated to have heard him preach during his lifetime.
1898: Death of Frances Willard, a Methodist crusader for women’s rights.
1912: Death of John Nelson known as the “Praying” Hyde. He had served as a missionary in India and died with the following words on his lips: “Shout the victory of Jesus Christ!”
1926: Arrest of Dr. Kao, a Chinese Christian who had moved to the pagan city of Gan-djou to serve as a Christian witness. Authorities were angry with him for exposing criminal activities in the city governance. He had to suffer in jail for many months.
1969: Golda Meir, born in Russia and brought up in Milwaukee, US, was sworn in as Israel’s first female prime minister.
1977: Death of Orestes of Agathonikeia, who had helped to bring thirty-seven Catholic parishes in North America back to Orthodoxy after years of conflict with Rome, which is said to have attempted to latinize the churches. His group was also against the prohibition of priestly marriages. Orestes later became the first bishop of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.
2001: Death of Richard Wurmbrandt, the founder of the ‘Voice of the Martyrs’ and of ministries to Eastern Europe during the Communist era.
2008: Two members of the Home Guard assassinate Pastor Samson Neil Edirisinghe in Ampara, Sri Lanka, critically injuring his wife and wounding their two-year-old son, because of an alleged conversion in the land.
Edited by:Â T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org