November 13: Today in Christian History

November 13, 387

Death in Ostia, Italy, of Monica, prayerful mother of Augustine of Hippo.

November 13, 619

Opening of the Second Council of Seville, the largest ever held in Spain. Among its many decisions was a ruling that baptism only required a single dipping and that hymns by authors such as Ambrose, with texts not taken directly from Scripture, are allowable in church services.

November 13, 867

Death of Pope Nicholas I the Great, who had been a strong proponent for Roman primacy in the church.

November 13, 1317

Death of Yaballah III, originally known as Rabban Markos from Beijing, who traveled west with Bar Sauma, and became a Patriarch of the East Syrian Church.

November 13, 1606

Johann Gerhard, who will become perhaps the most influential 17th-century Lutheran theologian, takes his doctorate of theology at the University of Jena.

November 13, 1644

Massachusetts passes a law against Baptists, calling them “troublers of churches” and subjecting them to banishment.

November 13, 1874

Death of Edward Mote, English cabinetmaker and hymnwriter. He penned the lines to the hymn “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less.”

November 13, 1884

Death of Prince Owusu-Ansa, who had worked as a Methodist evangelist in Ghana for many years. He had become a Christian while held hostage by the British.

November 13, 1907

Death of Francis Thompson, the English poet who wrote “The Hound of Heaven,” showing how God in grace pursued him after he had wrecked his life with opium addiction.

November 13, 1913

Lenin writes to Maxim Gorki, “Every religious idea, every idea of God, even flirting with the idea of God, is unutterable vileness....”

November 13, 1938

Pope Pius XI beatifies Francis Xavier Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, placing her on a track to become the first American citizen to be canonized as a saint. Italian-born, she had gone to America to aid Italian immigrants.