APRIL 12
Soon to Be a Famous Abbess, Hild Was Baptized (627)
“This day was fourteen years ago , about sunset, the Lord took my first born son from me, the beginning of my strength, with a stroke in the remembranc...”
Henry, Philip. Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry of Broadoak, Flintshire A.D. 1631-1696, edited by Matthew Henry Lee. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882. P.289.
Easter, the Resurrection of Our Lord (400)
Are there any who are devout lovers of God?Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!Are there any who are grateful...
Events
352
Death of Pope St. Julius. A staunch defender of Athanasius, he had given him asylum when he was forced into exile by the empire’s Arian faction.
Authority for the date: Brusher, Joseph. Popes Through the Ages, Third Edition. Neff-Kane, 1980.1204
A Frankish army attacks Constantinople from Venetian ships as part of the Fourth Crusade and will breach the walls the next day, after which the soldiers will rape and pillage for three days and desecrate the city’s great place of worship, the Hagia Sophia.
Authority for the date: Christian History 82 (2004).1343
Pope Clement VI enumerates the many crimes of Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV and orders him to renounce the imperial dignity, which he ultimately does.
Authority for the date: Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church.1523
Frightened by theologians of the Sorbonne, Bishop Briçonnet, who has befriended Protestants, issues a mandate forbidding reformers from preaching within the diocese of Meaux. Later he recants all of his Protestant views.
Authority for the date: James Anderson, Ladies of the Reformation p. 3281523
Reformation evangelist William Farel is forbidden to preach in Meaux, France. Subsequently, he will shift his endeavors to Switzerland.
Authority for the date: Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church.1525
Mass is said in Zurich for the last time during the Reformation as an act of the established church.
Authority for the date: Smith, Preserved. The Age of the Reformation.1557
Protestant converts Thomas Loseby, Henry Ramsey, Thomas Thirtel, Margaret Hide, and Agnes Stanley are burned together in a single fire during the reign of Mary Tudor.
Authority for the date: Foxe, John. Actes and Monuments.1626
Deeply moved by the preaching of Jesuit priest Antonio de Andrade, the King of Tibet personally lays the cornerstone of the first Christian church in Tibet. However, the work soon will end because alarmed Buddhist monks will overthrow the king and shut down the mission.
Authority for the date: Paul Hattaway, China’s Christian Martyrs1704
Death of Jacques-Beniqne Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, orator, philosopher, and historian. A master of style and argument, he supported the divine right of kings, defended the freedom of the French church and monarchy against popes, upheld Catholic doctrines against Protestants, and obtained the church’s condemnation of some writings of the Quietist bishop François Fenelon.
Authority for the date: Britannica1709
The first issue of the Tatler, England’s first magazine, goes on sale. It will demonstrate the power of the press to reform manners and morals. Joseph Addison, a Christian, will write many of its numbers.
Authority for the date: Drake, Nathan. Essays, Biographical, Critical, and Historical.1730
Death of Acacius the Younger of Mt. Athos. An extreme ascetic and prayer warrior, given to night-long vigils, he was regarded as a saint in the Orthodox Church.
Authority for the date: http://oca.org/1797
Thomas Cadell publishes William Wilberforce’s A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. The book becomes influential in changing the character of British society.
Authority for the date: Mangalwadi, Vishal. India: The Grand Experiment. Farnham, Surrey, England: Pippa Rann Books, 1997.1846
Baptism of Huang Guagcai, an orphan who will become the first Chinese deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church in China and later will be ordained its first clergyman.
Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.1850
Death of Adoniram Judson, Baptist missionary pioneer to Burma. He had translated the Bible into Burmese. At his death, he is on a voyage undertaken in an attempt to regain his health and overcome depression which makes him doubt his salvation. He and his wife, Ann, had been household names in America.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1860
Presbyterian missionary Ashbel Green Simenton organizes his first Sunday school in Brazil.
Authority for the date: William R. Read, New Patterns of Church Grow1917
Patriarch Tikhon raises Vladimir Nikolsky to the rank of archbishop of Perm where he takes the name Andronicus. The following year Andronicus will be shot and buried alive (one account will say drowned) by Soviets irate that he stands for the old regime against their atheism and resists their looting of Russian Orthodox churches.
Authority for the date: http://orthodoxwiki.org/Andronik_%28Nikolsky%29_of_Perm1972
Twentieth anniversary of Watchman Nee’s imprisonment, five years more than his maximum sentence. Within weeks the evangelical pastor will be dead.
Authority for the date: Kinnear, Angus. Against the Tide.1978
Arrest of 200 Makarere Church people in Uganda under Idi Amin’s cruel regime.
Authority for the date: Wooding, Dan. Uganda Holocaust.