February 6
679: Passing away of Amandus, the founder of Belgian monasticism, who also had established eight abbeys.
897: (Probable date) Death of Photius, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 858 to 867. He was acclaimed as one of the most learned scholars of his day and the defender of the autonomous traditions of his church against Rome. He had conflicts with Rome also due to his allegiance to the Byzantine Emperor, who had a strained relationship with the Pope. Ultimately the conflict led to a schism – Photian Schism – between the eastern and western branches of the church.
1481: First auto-da-fé in Spain, a ritual which forced condemned heretics and apostates to public penance. Such events were often followed by the execution of the ‘heretics.’
1497: Death of Jean de Ockeghem, a Franco-Flemish composer of Christian music, including a well-known requiem and many motets.
1564: John Calvin preaches his last sermon, before leaving the pulpit with his mouth full of blood. He succumbed to his illness three months later.
1812: Adoniram Judson, Gordon Hall, Luther Rice, Samuel Newell, and Samuel Nott are ordained for foreign service at Salem in Massachusetts, as the first foreign missionaries of the United States.
1839: Robert Murray McCheyne, a Scottish clergyman, states in a letter: “Even in the wildest storms the sky is not all dark; and so in the darkest dealings of God with His children, there are always some bright tokens for good.”
1910: Death of Harriet Eugenia Peck Buell, the author of the hymn “A Child of the King.”
1924: Station KFSG (Kall Four Square Gospel), one of the earliest radio stations licensed, goes on the air.
1931: Frank Laubach, Pioneer American linguist and missionary, exhorted in a letter: ‘There is a deep peace that grows out of illness and loneliness and a sense of failure. God cannot get close when everything is delightful. He seems to need these darker hours, these empty-hearted hours, to mean the most to people.’
Edited by:Â T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org