14th November: Today in Christian History

14th November, 565

Death of eighty-two-year-old Roman Emperor Justinian. He had reunited the Eastern and Western empires politically and religiously, erected several basilicas and created the Justinian Code. This code of law will influence the development of canon law in the Middle Ages and secular law codes into modern times.

14th November, 1359

On this day in Christian History, Gregory Palamas, a fourteenth-century Byzantium monk died. He had advocated repetitive prayer and devotion to Mary. Having fled from Mt. Athos to escape the Turks, he became bishop of Thessalonica, was excommunicated during power struggles, and eventually rehabilitated.

14th November, 1716

On this day in Christian History, the Lutheran philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz died at Hanover, Germany. In his lifetime, it was him who refused lucrative positions that would have forced him to change faith. A mathematical genius, the symbols he developed are today widely used in calculus.

14th November, 1741

On this day in Christian history, popular English revivalist, George Whitefield married his heartthrob, Elizabeth Burnell.

November 14, 1784

On this day in Christian history, the American clergyman, Samuel Seabury, was consecrated as a bishop of the Anglican Church in Aberdeen, Scotland. The Church of England had refused to perform the ceremony because he would not swear loyalty to the crown. The following year he formally becomes America’s first Anglican bishop. Five years later, he will help reorganize America’s Anglicans as the Episcopal Church.

November 14, 1861

On this day in Christian history, at a convention of the Northern association of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in New York City, the United States Christian Commission was formed with an aim to minister to the material and spiritual needs of soldiers during the American Civil War.

November 14, 1869

On this day in Christian History, Elizabeth Maria Thompson died. She was the founder of the Lebanon Evangelical Mission. She had gone to Lebanon to comfort the widows and orphans created by a Muslim massacre of the Christian males at Damascus.

14th November, 1876

On this day in Christian History, the Christian-sponsored Girl’s Higher Normal School opens in Tokyo, Japan.

14th November, 1901

On this day in Christian history, C.H.S. Matthews sailed from Liverpool to Australia to become a bush parson. There, he founded the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd.

November 14, 1910

Death of John La Farge, a Roman Catholic artist, who had painted murals for Trinity Church, Boston, and the Church of the Ascension, New York City. He had also produced notable work in glass and other media.

14th November, 1923

On this day in Christian History, in a charge to the clergy of the Diocese of Dornakal, India, V. S. Azariah urges them to “teach, teach, teach.”

14th November, 1976

On this day in Christian History, the Plains (Ga.) Baptist Church, where then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter was a member, votes to permit blacks to attend.

14th November, 1990

On this day in Christian History, British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge dies at 87. After editorial stints at the Manchester Guardian and Punch and years as a BBC commentator, the cynical and licentious Muggeridge quietly converted to Christianity. It was his reporting on Mother Teresa that first brought her to the public's attention.