February 20
536: (or 19th Feb.) Pope Agapetus enters Constantinople being sent as ambassador to the eastern emperor by Theodahad, king of the Ostrogoths. His Holiness passed away at this place two months later.
1737: Death of author Elizabeth Singer Rowe, whose poems and fiction bore mostly Christian themes. She is considered a pivotal figure in the development of English novel.
1743: David Brainerd, Colonial missionary to the American Indians, reminded in his journal, “Selfish religion loves Christ for his benefits, but not for himself.”
1878: Italian cardinal Gioacchino Pecci was elected Pope Leo XIII, following the death of Pius IX. Leo’s papacy is considered the most productive of the century and he was best known for his teaching encyclicals and for establishing the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1902.
1919: Women in America unite for a day of prayer for missions, led by Lucy Peabody and Helen Montgomery, which later developed into an annual worldwide prayer event.
1942: Death of Barlaam, Archbishop of Perm, who had been restricted and imprisoned many times by Soviet authorities for actively engaging in religious activities. He had been condemned to be shot in August 1941, but the sentence was later commuted to ten years in prison camps.
1950: Jim Elliot, American missionary and martyr, exhorts in his journal, “One may know God’s work for his soul without understanding it all… Let the heart be warm, at all costs to the head, in the getting of Christianity.”
1960: Death of Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, a British archaeologist, who is remembered for having excavated Ur of the Chaldees, and for discovering the ancient Sumerian civilization.
1962: Cuban authorities detain Seventh-day Adventist pastor Noble Alexander who had to spent the next twenty-two years in prison.
1976: Death of Kathryn Kuhlman, popular American radio and TV evangelist, whose preaching emphasized the healing power of the Holy Spirit.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org