DECEMBER 7
BORN TODAY, COLUMBA BECAME A FAMOUS IRISH SAINT (521)
“Lord our God, we gather in your presence, coming from this world so full of suffering, grief, and misfortune that we could well be afraid. But we do n...”
Blumhardt, Christoph. Lift Thine Eyes, Evening Prayers for Every Day of the Year.
We must worship in spirit and truth (1850)
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the F...
Events
396
An imperial edict declares that any privileges granted in ancient law to pagan priests and leaders in the Roman Empire are abolished.
Authority for the date: Wisconsin Lutheran College, Imperial Laws an416
Co-emperors Honorius and Theodosius II declare that pagans may not become administrators or judges within the Roman Empire.
Authority for the date: Wisconsin Lutheran College, Imperial Laws an521
(traditional date) Birth of Columba, who becomes an Irish monk, educator, bishop, and missionary. He will undertake evangelization in Scotland and Northern England, founding a monastery on the isle of Iona.
Authority for the date: Edmonds, Columba. “St. Columba.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.1254
Death of Pope Innocent IV. His reign had been marred by perpetual strife with German emperors, a bull allowing the Inquisition to use torture and anonymous denunciations, and pressure on French king Louis IX to undertake disastrous crusades.
Authority for the date: Brusher, Joseph. Popes Through the Ages. Neff-Kane, 1980.1542
Emperor Charles V places a reward of one hundred gold guilders on the head of the peacable Anabaptist leader Menno Simon.
Authority for the date: Simons, Menno. Complete Writings of Menno Simons.1562
Death of Roman Catholic composer Adrian Willaert, a founder of the Venetian school. He had composed masses, hymns, psalms, and motets of the highest caliber, developing an antiphonal style (that is, a style in which alternating groups respond to each other).
Authority for the date: Wikipedia1821
Death of Pomare II, the Christian king of Tahiti.
Authority for the date: Haweis, H. R. Travel and talk, 1885-93-95. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1896.1875
Five Franciscan nuns, exiled by the policies of Bismarck, drown in the wreck of the ship Deutschland off the coast of England during a storm. Gerard Manley Hopkins will write a celebrated poem about the event.
Authority for the date: http://www.franciscansisters-fcjm.org/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=6&lang=en1892
African clergy and laypeople write a letter protesting attempts to declare Samuel Adjai Crowther’s service as the first African bishop in Nigeria unsuccessful. They point to thousands of conversions and the establishment of many schools and churches under Crowther. British missionaries had painted the deceased Crowther as unsuccessful so as to convince the Anglican church to maintain white leaders in Nigeria.
Authority for the date: A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America1965
A joint Catholic-Orthodox declaration from Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I lifts the mutual excommunications that Catholics and Orthodox had placed on each other in 1054 at the start of the great East-West Schism.
Authority for the date: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Eastern_Orthodox_Christian_theology.1990
Pakistani authorities arrest Tahir Iqbal, a Christian paraplegic, declaring he had insulted Mohammed by underlining passages and making margin notes in a copy of a Koran. He died in prison, having declared, “I will kiss my rope, but I will never deny my faith.”
Authority for the date: Foxe, John and Harold J. Chadwick. The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Gainesville, FL: Bridge-Logos, 2001.