Sunday, January 16, 2011

This Week In History

January 16, 1543: British Parliament prohibits any "women or artificer's prentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degree of yeoman, or under, husbandmen or labourers to read the New Testament in English."

January 16, 1604: Puritan John Rainolds suggests " . . . that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek." England's King James I granted his approval the following day, leading to the 1611 publication of the Authorized (King James) version of the Bible.

January 16, 1920: Largely the result of Christian activists, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution goes into effect, prohibiting the sale of alcohol. Thirteen years later, Congress repeals the prohibition.

January 17, 356 (traditional date): Antony of Egypt, regarded as the founder of Christian monasticism, dies at age 105. Committed to a life of solitude and absolute poverty, he took two companions with him into the desert when he knew his death was near. They were ordered to bury him without a marker so that his body would never become an object of reverence.

January 17, 1377: Gregory XI moves the papal see from Avignon (where it had been for 72 years) back to Rome. However, when he died the next year, two men (one in Rome, the other in Avignon) both claimed to succeed him, creating a schism.

January 17, 1525: The Zurich City Council arranges a public debate on the subject of infant baptism, which Ulrich Zwingli mandated but Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz (among others) opposed on the grounds that baptism symbolizes a believer's commitment to Christ. Grebel and Manz were defeated and eventually killed for their views.

January 18, 1562: The counter-reformation Council of Trent reconvenes after a 10-year break caused by the revolt of Protestant princes against Emperor Charles V. During the break, all hope of reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants had vanished.

January 18, 1815: Konstantin von Tischendorf, the biblical critic known for discovering and deciphering the "Codex Sinaiticus" (a fifth-century manuscript of Paul's epistles), is born in Germany.

January 18, 1830: Baptism of Tauta'ahau Tupou. King of Tonga by a western missionary. Beginning of a strongly missionary Christian Kingdom.

January 19, 1086: Canute the Great, the king of Denmark, is killed by his subjects. Though Denmark was already nominally Christian when he became king, he went to great lengths to revitalize the faith. He built and restored churches and monasteries and created laws protecting the clergy. But his "new order," which included higher taxes and mandatory tithes, led to a revolt. Canute was reportedly killed in church while celebrating Mass, and he was declared a martyr and saint in 1101.

January 19, 1649: England's King Charles I, a devout Anglican with Catholic sympathies who staunchly defended the "divine right of kings" while oppressing the Puritans, is executed after being convicted of treason under a Puritan-influenced Parliament.

January 20, 1569: Miles Coverdale, publisher of the first printed English Bible and the man who completed William Tyndale's translation of the Old Testament, dies at 81.

January 20, 1918: Following the Bolshevik Revolution, all church property in Russia is confiscated and all religious instruction in schools abolished.

January 21, 1549: In the first of four Acts of Uniformity, the British Parliament requires all Anglican public services to exclusively use of The Book of Common Prayer.

January 21, 1621: Pilgrims leave the Mayflower and gather on shore at Plymouth, Massachusetts, for their first religious service in America.

January 22, 304 (traditional date): Vincent of Saragossa, one of the most famous martyrs of the early church, is killed. Starved, racked, roasted on a gridiron, thrown into prison, and set in stocks, he refused to sacrifice. According to Augustine, his fame extended everywhere in the Roman Empire and "wherever the name of Christ was known".