June 23
964: Emperor Otto I forces the Romans to hand over Benedict, a deacon whom they had elected the Pope as the successor of John XII whom the emperor had earlier deposed on allegations of worldliness and who had died in May.
1444: Demise of Mark of Ephesus, who became famous for standing alone for the Eastern church at the Council of Florence, as all other eastern leaders conceded to Rome.
1565: The Knights of Malta lose the fort at St. Elmo to the Ottoman Turks; they later succeeded in driving the Turks from Malta.
1626: A fish vendor finds a rancid, half-digested copy of a volume of John Frith’s shorter works in the belly of a giant codfish at Cambridge fish market. Frith was an English protestant priest, author and martyr.
1683: William Penn, English Quaker, signs his famous treaty with the Lenni Lenape, the Indians of Pennsylvania, formalizing a peaceful relationship and land purchase agreement between Penn and the Lenape. Voltaire once hailed the treaty – known as the Treaty of Shackamaxon – as the only one never sworn to, and never broken.
1893: Formation of the Anti-Saloon League of the District of Columbia – a movement to fight alcohol consumption – under the leadership of Samuel H. Walker, a Methodist Episcopal layman. Later it became a national movement, subsequently overshadowed by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
1941: Walter J. Ciszek is arrested in Russia for preaching the gospel, defying the Communist dictate not to do that. His book He Leadeth Me recalls his experiences and sufferings.
1964: Repose of Johan Herman Bavinck, a Dutch missionary to Indonesia and who later taught at Kampen Theological College and at the Free University of Amsterdam.
1967: Pope Paul VI issues the encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, reaffirming the need for priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org