August 2: Today in Christian History

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August 2, 2020

Living Faith Church, a.k.a Winners' Chapel International plants 240 new Churches across Nigeria in one day. This is in furtherance to the mandate to plant 10,000 Churches in 2020.

August 2, 2020

Pastor David Ibiyeomie announces that N36 billion ($72m) has been spent on the carcass of the 'Hand of God'. The Hand of God is the Salvation Ministries 120,000 capacity Cathedral and Headquarters which is set to be one of the largest church auditoria on planet earth.

August 2, 2017

Board of Regents of Landmark University appoints Dr Azubuike Ezenwoke as Registrar. At 32, he became the youngest University Registrar in Nigeria. Landmark University Proprietor is the World Mission Agency of Living Faith Church Worldwide

International

August 2, 1555

Martyrdom of James Abbes. The bishop of Norwich had tried to convince him to recant and given him money. When Abbes returns and throws down the money, saying he was wrong to have accepted it, the bishop again reasons with him but finally hands him over to secular authorities to be burned alive at Bury.

Authority for the date: Foxe, John. Actes and Monuments.

August 2, 1564

Pius IV issues the motu proprio (personal edict) Alias nonnullas constitutiones appointing eight cardinals to bring discipline to church music in conformity with a decision of the Council of Trent.

Authority for the date: Robertson, Alec. Christian Music, p. 97; also, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/177372/summary

August 2, 1640

Joseph Chiwatenhwa, a Huron Christian is butchered as he carries a message for the Jesuits. When his murdered body is brought to his cabin his wife says nothing for a few moments, then observes, "I have often heard him say 'He who is the master of us all has so arranged it. What can we do about it?' " So afire for Christ had he been that the other Indians simply called him "the Christian."

Source: O'Brien, John A. The American Martyrs. New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts, 1953.

August 2, 1844

Isaac Hecker makes his confession and is received into the church. He found the Paulists to convert Americans to Catholic Christianity.

Source: O'Brien, John A. Giants of the Faith. New York: Image Books, 1960.

August 2, 1861

Death in Versailles of Father Gioacchino Ventura, a controversial Catholic writer and Italian patriot, whose voice was often raised in behalf of liberty, limited government, decentralization, and constitutionalism. He had also written a book The Mother of God, Mother of People (1840) that advocated the priesthood of women, contending that Mary, as mother of Jesus, acted as a priest to sacrifice her son.

Authority for the date: Wikipedia

August 2, 1881

Sergius Georgievich Golubyatnikov is ordained to the Orthodox priesthood in Russia, taking the name Seraphim. He will rise to become a bishop but will be imprisoned in 1917 for condemning the Bolsheviks' February revolution. He will become the first prisoner at the Novospassky monastery when it is converted to a prison and will be executed (it is thought) in 1921.

Authority for the date: Moss, Vladimir. Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia.

1908

Death of Frederik Franson, missions pioneer. As a young man, Frederik Franson had collapsed from exhaustion and malaria while working a farm in Nebraska. During his recovery, he had read the Bible and became convinced he needed Christ in his life. Afterward, in 1890, Franson had founded T.E.A.M. (The Evangelical Alliance Mission) in Chicago. In his mission work, he had often encountered persecution and had even been jailed for his faith activities.

Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.

1916

Death of Samuel David Ferguson, a leading educator and bishop of the Episcopal Church in Liberia, and the first African American elected a bishop of the Episcopal Church, although he served in that capacity only in Liberia.

Authority for the date: Episcopal Church. Holy Women, Holy Men.

August 2, 1942

Edith Stein is seized at her convent by the S.S. and taken to a concentration camp in the Netherlands. A Jewish-Catholic philosopher, she had rejected an opportunity to escape to Switzerland because she refused to abandon her sister who could not obtain a visa.

Source: Oben, Freda Mary. Edith Stein: Scholar, Feminist and Saint. Alba House, 1988.

1942

Burial in Tobolsk of the Orthodox bishop Vladyka Hermogenes whom the Bolsheviks had martyred in June for his outspoken censure of their evil behavior.

Authority for the date: Moss, Vladimir. Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia.

1947

Death from tuberculosis of Liu Tingfang, a prominent Presbyterian educator and church leader in China.

Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.