February 25
1296: Pope Boniface VIII issues the bull Clericis laicos forbidding the clergy from paying taxes to secular rulers without papal consent.
1536: Jacob Hutter, Gentle Anabaptist leader from whom the Hutterites take their name, is burned to death in Austria after being tortured, whipped, and immersed in freezing water (to mock baptismal practices).
1570: In a judgment, the last of its sort in history made by a pope against a reigning monarch, Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth I of England for her severe persecution of Roman Catholics in England.
1796: Repose of Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America.
1824: The Baptist General Tract Society is organized in Washington, D.C. It was moved to Philadelphia in 1826 and could issue over 3.5 million copies of 162 different tracts by 1840.
1862: Demise of Andrew Reed, a popular Independent minister who founded the London Orphan Asylum, the Asylum for Fatherless Children, the Asylum for Idiots, the Infant Orphan Asylum, and the Hospital for Incurables. He was also the author of hymns like, “Holy Ghost, with light divine” and “Spirit Divine, attend our prayer.”
1880: Death of Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Lutheran Theologian and leader of the revival in Germany, who also founded  Bad Boell, a spa for people with mental, spiritual, and physical diseases.
1902: Birth of Oscar Cullmann, the German New Testament scholar, best known for pioneering a “salvation history” view of the NT. His best-known publications are Christ and Time (1946) and Christology of the New Testament (1959).
1913: Pioneer missionary Eduard L. Arndt first arrives in Shanghai, China. He had founded the Evangelical Lutheran Missions (ELMS Mission) for China a few months before and it was taken over by the Missouri Synod in 1917. He also established missions and schools in the Hankow territory later, and translated hymns and sermons into Chinese.
1928: Stanley Frodsham publishes an article in Pentecostal Evangel paying tribute to Swiss-born Paul Bettex, a zealous international missionary, who had been assassinated and secretly buried in China before fourteen years.
1934: Sir Leonard Woolley ends his archaeological excavations at Ur, having uncovered much information that would help Christians understand the ancient texts of Scripture better.
1940: Death of Mary Mills Patrick in California, an educational missionary to Turkey who had turned a girl’s school into the Constantinople Women’s College and kept it open through two wars and a revolution.
1995: Samandar Singh assasinates Sister Rani Maria in Indore, India, by repeatedly stabbing her. He was misled by anti-Christian propaganda in this cruel act and converted to Christianity while in prison. The forgiving love of Rani Marias sister, also a nun, moved him deeply.
Edited by:Â T. Chempilayil MCBS