MAY 26
Bede, the Father of English History, Chanted a Hymn and Died (735)
“Now the passage which I have undertaken to expound to day, is one in which the doctrine of the Trinity is brought into connection practically with the...”
Robertson, F.W. Sermons Preached at Brighton. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench and Co., 1884.
Give Thanks for Holy Communion (1916)
Read John 6:49-59 I. Our Lord gave the instruction recorded in our passage in the one synagogue in all the world, it see...
Events
451
Armenians fight a desperate battle at Avarayr to preserve their Christian culture against the Persians, who have a much larger army. This is the first known battle in history fought to preserve a nation’s Christian faith. Although the Armenians lose the battle and their best leaders, the Persians lose sixty thousand soldiers and agree by treaty that Armenia may practice its faith.
Authority for the date: www.armenianchurch-ed.net605
(probable date) Death of Augustine of Canterbury, the missionary who had persuaded the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex and Kent to follow Christianity.
Authority for the date: Episcopal Church. Holy Women, Holy Men.1232
Pope Gregory IX appoints Dominican friars to be inquisitors in Aragon. He will appoint others for the kingdoms of Navarre, Castile, and Portugal.
Authority for the date: Balmes, James and William H. Rule. “The Inquisition Established in Spain A.D. 1480.”1328
Franciscan friar William of Occam, a notable scholar, flees from Avignon to escape Pope John XXII, of whom he had been critical, and joins Emperor Louis of Bavaria. He will take an active part in the emperor’s struggles against the pope.
Authority for the date: Encyclopedia Americana.1521
A rump session of the Diet of Worms approves an edict declaring Luther a criminal who has committed high treason, and calls for his capture and death.
Authority for the date: Christian History 28 (1999).1595
Death in Rome of Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratorians.
Authority for the date: New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.1862
Thomas Barnardo experiences conversion to evangelical Christianity. His most famous work will be the opening of orphanages for London’s homeless boys and girls.
Authority for the date: Orr, J. Edwin. Second Evangelical Awakening.1894
Lillian May Thomas, an African-American, sails from the United States for the Congo as a missionary.
Authority for the date: Jacobs, Sylvia M. Black Americans & the Missionary Movement in Africa. Greenwood Pr., 1982.1908
Catholic missionary Gustave Behr is murdered while passing a Buddhist monastery in Batang, Tibet. His body is recovered from the nearby river several days later.
Authority for the date: Paul Hattaway, China’s Christian Martyrs. p. 1211910
Pope Pius X issues his “Borromeo” encyclical (Editae saepe) in which he blames modern revolutions on “the would-be reformers of the sixteenth century” and characterizes them as enemies of the cross.
Authority for the date: Schaff, Philip. Creeds of Christendom.1927
Death at Newton, Massachusetts, of Francis Edward Clark, founder of the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1936
Death in Valparaiso, Chili, of Willis Collins Hoover, a Methodist missionary who founded Chile’s Pentecostal movement and consequently was disowned by his Methodist sponsors.
Authority for the date: Wikipedia1952
Death in Fort Worth, Texas, of Walter Thomas Conner, a Southern Baptist preacher and educator active in Texas. He had sought to make theological education result in practical expressions of faith, by writing and teaching for four decades at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Authority for the date: https://tshaonline.org