October 4: Today in Christian History

October 4: Today in Christian History

October 4, 1582

Spanish mystic and founder of a reformed Carmelite order Teresa of Avila dies. A model of spiritual discipline, she experienced visions of Jesus, wrote several mystical books (including her autobiography), and possessed a genius for administration.

October 4, 1669

Death of Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, known as the “painter of the soul” for his unsurpassed Christian art.

Read: Biography of Oladosu Twins

October 4, 1806

Death at Brighton, England, of Samuel Horsley, bishop of St. Asaph, a diocese in Wales. He had written scientific works as well as defending fundamental Christian teachings.

October 4, 1848

Death of John Hunt, missionary to the Fiji Islands, who faced tremendous opposition at the start, but at his death was so beloved his converts pleaded with God to take a number of them rather than him.

October 4, 1864

Death of Protestant philanthropist Theodore Fliedner, a pioneer in deaconess training.

October 4, 1890

Catherine Booth, English "mother of the Salvation Army," dies of cancer. Besides preaching as a Salvation Army minister, she persuaded her husband, William, to make women an integral part of Salvation Army leadership and work 

October 4, 1927

John Sung, a Chinese student in America, boards a ship bound for Shanghai, intending to evangelize China. He will preach the Gospel for fifteen years in his native land, winning 100,000 converts to Christ.

October 4, 1930

British missionaries Eleanor June Harrison and Edith Nettleton were beheaded in China. They had been abducted in July at Chungan in Fujian province. Their ransom was originally set at $500,000. When the ransom was not forthcoming, the bandits cut off one of Miss Nettleton's fingers and sent it along with the same ransom demand to the provincial authorities. The Church Missionary Society authorized a representative to pay $10,000 in gold for the women's release. The bandits received the money, but, believing that they had been betrayed when provincial troops attacked them, the outlaws killed the two missionaries.

October 4, 1965

Pope Paul VI makes an unprecedented visit to New York to plead for world peace before the United Nations.

October 4, 1970

Pope Paul VI declares Catherine of Siena a doctor of the church.

October 4, 1972

Bolaji Idowu was elected president of the Methodist Church, Nigeria. Among his key contributions was the revision of the church’s constitution, making it autonomous, and unification with the nation’s Zion Methodist Church.

October 4, 1994

Two Egyptian Christians, Ageeb Sami Yacoub and Ameer Sami Yacoub, having refused to pay protection money to Muslims, were bound and murdered in cold blood.

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