September 17
335 [or the 13th]: Consecration of the Church of the Anastasis (Church of the Resurrection), which was commissioned by Emperor Constantine, at the reputed site of the Lord’s Resurrection. It took another fifty years for the completion of the church.
1252: Dedication of the Cathedral in Ely, in England, in the presence of King Henry III and Prince Edward.
1485: Assassination of inquisitor Peter Arbues at Saragossa, Spain, while praying in the cathedral. Later he was declared a saint.
1525: Valentine Crautwald receives the Schwenckfelder view of the Eucharist in a vision: “spiritual grain” eaten by faith grows in a believer, transforming him or her toward the full image of God, the person of Christ – implicating that that the communion as a bread remained a nourishing for the body, but that we receive the spiritual body by means of the communion.
1575: Demise of Heinrich Bullinger, the Swiss reformer, who had succeeded Zwingli at Zurich. Because of the hospitality he extended to English exiles, had become influential among the English Puritans.
1581: Domingo Salazar, the first bishop of the Philippines, and his Jesuit companions reach Manila, after walking overland for two months because the winds were unfavorable for sailing.
1595: Pope Clement VIII grants absolution to Henry IV of France, formerly a Protestant, so that he can rule France. The Pope is accused of having extracted many concessions from the king in exchange.
1621: Repose of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine in Rome, a Jesuit and a celebrated defender of Roman Catholic teaching against Protestant theologies. It was he who instructed Galileo not to teach the heliocentric theory.
1644: (old calendar) English authorities execute Ralph Corbie (or Corbington), a Jesuit priest, in London, for being a catholic.
1656: Massachusetts enacts severe laws against Quakers, since the non-sacramental Quakerism gave the impression that it was anti-governmental, at a time when religion and politics functioned hand in hand.
1683: Repose of John Campanius, a Lutheran missionary to Indians.
1717: The first synod of the Presbyterian Church in America meets in Philadelphia.
1776: A group of 247 Spanish colonists consecrate their newly-founded mission, known as San Francisco, along the western coast of North America.
1787: The U.S. parliament ratifies the following code under Article 6, Section 3 of the Constitution: “No religious tests shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
1792: Consecration of Thomas John Claggett at Trinity Church, New York City, as the first Episcopal bishop consecrated in America, since the others were consecrated elsewhere.
1804: Establishment of the Santa Ynez Mission in California. Father Arroyo, one of its members, prepared a grammar of the language of the Indians of the San Juan region.
1833: Pastor Theodore Fliedner from Kaiserswerth offers a homeless woman, who was just released from a jail, an outbuilding as a temporary shelter, which became the beginning point of the Kaiserswerth institutions.
1868: Birth of Walter Gowans, a Canadian missions pioneer, who helped found the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in Toronto in 1893, which works with African nationals and specializes in establishing churches, and in the fields of medicine and broadcasting.
1913: foundation of the International Union of Gospel Missions (IUGM), with the cooperation of many groups which are operating rescue missions.
1959: Construction works begin for the Adventist College of West Africa in Nigeria, which has trained thousands of Africans and which is known as Babcock University now.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org