February 24
303: Roman Emperor Galerius Valerius Maximianus issues the first official Roman edict for the persecution of Christians.
1208: Francis of Assisi receives the call to discipleship at Portiuncula in Italy. He founded the Order of Franciscans the following year, and is called the ‘Second Christ.’
1500: Birth of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who officially pronounced Martin Luther an outlaw and heretic.
1582: Pope Gregory XIII issues his famous bull Inter Gravissimas, decreeing the present Gregorian calendar.
1782: Francis Asbury, pioneer American Methodist bishop, confesses in his journal, “It is my constitutional weakness to be gloomy and dejected; the work of God puts life into me.”
1873: An edict against Christianity, which was in force for long in Japan, is revoked.
1886: Death of Samuel Wolcott, a Congregational clergyman and author of numerous hymns, including “Christ for the World We Sing.”
1946: Death of pastor Charles Monroe Sheldon in Topeka, Kansas, who authored the popular Christian novel In His Steps, which gave us the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?”
1949: After long years of unsuccessful attempts to suppress Christianity, the government of Bulgaria passes a law acknowledging the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as the traditional church of Bulgaria and inseparably united with its history.
1967: Karl Barth, Swiss Reformed theologian, commented in a letter, “The statement that God is dead comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in [the] heaven laughs at them.”
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org