January 16: Today in Christian History

January 16, 648

Death at Forsheim, France, of St. Fursey who had founded monasteries in England and Gaul. Many years earlier, Fursey, while seriously ill, had fallen into a trance in which he saw visions of heaven and hell that he recorded. These will probably be among the sources from which Dante will draw inspiration for the descriptions of hell and heaven in his Inferno and Paradiso.

January 16, 1543

British Parliament prohibits the reading of the New Testament in English by “women or artificer’s prentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degree of yeoman, or under, husbandmen or labourers...”

January 16, 1545

Death at Altenburg, Saxony, of Georg Spalatin, a friend of Luther. As confidential secretary, councilor, librarian, historian, archivist, and relic-buyer for elector Frederick the Wise he had been able to promote the Reformation.

January 16, 1604

Puritan John Rainolds suggests to King James I “that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek.” James will grant approval the next day. Seven years later, the Authorized Version (King James Version) will be published.

January 16, 1630

Archbishop William Laud consecrates St. Catherine Cree Church, in Leadenhall Street, London, with ritual and ceremony that his detractors consider excessive and counter to Reformation or Puritan tendencies.

January 16, 1650

Death of Blessed Maximus, Priest of Totma in Vologda District, a “fool for Christ” who had continually fasted and prayed. The Orthodox consider him a saint because of miracles alleged to have occurred at his tomb.

January 16, 1786

Virginia adopts a statute for establishing religious freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.

January 16, 1815

Reformer Henry Thornton dies at William Wilberforce’s house in London, England. A banker and Parliamentarian, he had been the financial brains behind the social schemes of the philanthropic and anti-slavery group known as the Clapham Sect.

January 16, 1899

Death in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, of Charles P. Chiniquy, who had been a Catholic priest but, following disciplinary action, left the church and became a popular American agitator against Catholicism and the author of the anti-Catholic book, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. He had also blamed Lincoln’s assassination on a Catholic conspiracy.

Read: How to Write an Effective Prayer Request

January 16, 1929

Abraham Odekunle Aiki returns to his home town in Ilero, Nigeria, where for more than forty years he will preach, visit, pray, and study. His church will grow from thirty-nine members to over one thousand, and he will plant several new churches and establish a school where none had previously existed.

January 16, 1999

United Methodists disturb many fellow Methodists and other traditional Christians by “blessing” a lesbian couple before fifteen hundred people in Sacramento, California. The women were lay leaders who had lived together for fifteen years.