June 26
684: Consecration of Benedict II as Pope. As a humble and charitable person, he was successful in freeing papal elections from imperial confirmation.
847: Rabanus Maurus, a well known scholar, is consecrated as the Archbishop of Mainz.
1080: A council of thirty bishops from Germany and Italy meets at Brixen in the Tyrol and deposes Pope Gregory VII on fictitious charges, including avarice, simony, sorcery, and the Berengarian heresy.
1097: The armies of the First Crusade succeed to regain the ancient Byzantine city of Nicea.
1526: The Diet of Ilanz proclaims religious freedom for all in the Grisons (a region of Switzerland), regardless of gender and rank, to choose between the Catholic and the Reformed religion. Those who chose the Reformed remained under banishment but didn’t have to lose their lives.
1529: The Swiss accept the first Peace of Kappel between the Protestant and the Catholic cantons.
1691: Demise of John Flavel at Exeter, an eminent English Puritan who had written many books, including one on Providence . He had influenced several future revival leaders, including George Whitefield and Robert Murray M’Cheyne through his writings.
1702: Birth of Philip Doddridge, an English Nonconformist clergyman, who authored 370 hymns, of which “O Happy Day That Fixed My Choice” is still popular.
1892: Birth of Pearl S. Buck, an American Presbyterian missionary to China and the author of the 1931 best-seller, The Good Earth.
1928: Repose of Isabel Florence Hapgood in New York City, who had translated many French and Russian literature into English. She loved Russian Orthodoxy and its liturgy so much that she translated its rites into English. She is also known for her attempts to bring together Russian Orthodox and Episcopalians in the United States.
1946: Demise of Alma Bridwell White, the first female bishop Pillar of Fire denomination in the United States. She was anti-Semitic and opposed Pentecostal manifestations such as speaking on toungues.
1955: Organization of the first Southern Baptist congregation in Las Vegas, as the second Southern Baptist church established in Nevada.
1968: Inauguration of the new Cathedral of Saint Mark in Cairo, Egypt, a prominent Coptic church building, by Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria together with President Abdel Nasser, and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.
1984: Noble Alexander, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, who had to spend twenty-two years in Fidel Castro’s prisons because of his faith, lands in Washington D.C.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org