29th September: Today in Christian History

29th September, 393

On this day in Christian History, an imperial decision protects Jews and their synagogues in the Roman Empire, banning regulations against Judaism in the name of Christianity.

29th September, 440

Leo I, the Great, is consecrated bishop of Rome (i.e.: pope). He will strengthen the authority of the church, suppress the Manichean heresy, and write important doctrinal letters.

29th September, 1413

Archbishop Arundel condemned Sir John Oldcastle, a follower of John Wycliffe, of heresy. He was given 40 days to recant, during which he escaped and hid in Wales. He remained hidden for a year, until the offer of a large reward prompted someone to betray him. He was then captured and roasted to death.

29th September, 1622

Death in exile of theologian Conrad Vorstius, at Toningen, Holstein, Germany. He had been accepted for a time by the Dutch Remonstrants (Arminians) but apparently denied the Trinity and the pre-existence of Christ and was eventually exiled by the Calvinist Synod of Dort.

29th September, 1642

On this day in Christian History, an American Indian tomahawks René Goupil for having made the sign of the cross over some Iroquois children. Goupil falls, gasping the name of Jesus. Earlier he had been beaten to the ground and assailed several times with knotted sticks and fists, had his hair, beard and nails torn off and his forefingers bitten through.

29th September, 1770

On this day in Christian History, while facing death, George Whitefield Preached One Last time.

29th September, 1771

Death at Aventage, India, of Rajanaiken. Converted from Catholic to Protestant views while serving in the army, he had enjoyed such success winning souls that he left the military to became an evangelist and pastor. His former church then had persecuted him and stirred up mobs to kill him, but each time he managed to escape, dying at last of natural causes.

September 29, 1830

The Leeds Mercury publishes Richard Oastler’s letter deploring “Yorkshire Slavery”—oppressive labor conditions of women and children. “Thousands of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, both male and female, the miserable inhabitants of a Yorkshire town....are this very moment existing in a state of slavery, more horrid than are the victims of that hellish system ‘colonial’ slavery.”

September 29, 1878

Death of Marianne Dyson, who had been on familiar terms with some of the Church of England’s Tractarians. She had sought to bring their teachings to the lower middle class through education and publications. She also had mentored the successful author Charlotte Yonge.

29th September, 1883

On this day in Christian History, Pandita Ramabai was baptized. She later became the most influential woman of India in the nineteenth-century.

29th September, 1904

On this day in Christian History, while Reverend Seth Joshua prays, Evan Roberts is filled with the Holy Spirit. He will go on to lead a significant revival in Wales.

September 29, 1918

On this day in Christian History, Edward Thomas Demby is consecrated as the first African American suffragan (assistant) bishop of the Episcopal Church.

September 29, 1941

On this day in Christian History, Communists sentenced Natalya Ivanovna Sundukova to death because she refused to work for the Soviet state, declaring it is antichristian. She was convicted of “anti-Soviet propaganda among the prisoners and counter-revolutionary sabotage” and will be shot the following January.

29th September, 1951

Death of notable Welsh evangelist and revivalist Evan Roberts near Cardiff.

29th September, 1968

On this day in Christian History, Christian and Missionary Alliance missionary Betty Ann Olsen, who is being held captive by the Viet Cong, died and is buried by Michael Benge along a trail. Olsen, born to missionary parents in Bouake, Ivory Coast, had gone to Vietnam in 1964 as a missionary nurse. Eventually taken prisoner by the Viet Cong, Olsen and two other missionaries were chained together and moved north from one encampment to another through mountainous jungles. The grueling months-long trip took its toll. Physically depleted, the missionaries became sick from dysentery and malnutrition and were beset by fungus, infection, leeches and ulcerated sores.

29th September, 1978

On this day in Christian History, just 3 (three) weeks after being elected, Pope John Paul I dies while reading a devotional in bed.

29th September, 1979

On this day in Christian History, the LDS Edition of the King James Version of the Bible was published.

29th September: Feast of the Archangels (Michaelmas)

In the Roman Catholic Church on 29 September three Archangels are celebrated: Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel, and Saint Raphael. Their feasts were unified in one common day during the second half of the 20th century.

Michaelmas also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels) is a Christian festival observed in many Western Christian liturgical calendars on 29 September, and on 8 November in the Eastern Christian traditions