February 18, 676
Feast of St. Colman of Lindisfarne (in some churches; others observe his day in August). Involved in the controversy between the Roman church and the Irish as to when to date Easter, he had left England and established two monasteries in Ireland.
February 18, 1455
Death in Rome of Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro), an Italian monk and painter. He is said to have painted all of his works prayerfully.
February 18, 1546
Death in Eisleben of German reformer Martin Luther.
February 18, 1564
Death in Rome of sculptor Michelangelo. At the end, he asks his friends only to remember the death of Christ.
February 18, 1856
Sultan Abdel Medjid-Khan of the Ottoman Empire decrees that governmental authorization at the highest level is required for a permit to build or even to repair a church. The law will remain in effect more than a century and a half later in Egypt. Consequently it can take years for Christians to receive permission to repair even a leaking toilet.
February 18, 1862
Five Catholics are executed in Guizhou Province, China, for refusing to renounce their faith. They include missionary Jean-Pierre Néel; Lucy Yi Zhenmei, a virgin; Martin Wu Xueshang; John Zhang Tianshen; and John Chen Xianheng.
February 18, 1869
Evangelical or “low church” Episcopalians sign the “Chicago Protest,” against “unprotestantizing” tendencies in the Protestant Episcopal denomination. Suspended by mainline Episcopalians, some will band together to found the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1873.
February 18, 1874
Death in London of William Sandys, English lawyer and the composer of “The First Noel.” He had done a good deal to popularize Christmas carols.
February 18, 1885
The Cambridge Seven (star college athletes who have dedicated themselves to Christian mission work) reach China.
February 18, 1894
A mob assaults the Presbyterian mission at Yeung Kong, China, breaking into the homes of the Rev. Andrew Beattie and Dr. D. A. Beattie, where they threaten and rough up the mission families (each man has a wife and child) as they smash and loot.
February 18, 1902
Death in Hampstead, England, of Christopher Newman Hall, an English Congregationalist minister, who edited the Christ Church Hymnal of 1876, to which he contributed eighty-two original hymns and wrote a famous tract titled, “Come to Jesus,” that will be translated into dozens of languages. His best-known hymn will be “Friend of Sinners, Lord of Glory.”
February 18, 1946
Pope Pius XII makes American Roman Catholic Archbishop Francis Joseph Spellman a cardinal.
February 18, 1948
Father Butrus Sowmy of St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Monastery in Jerusalem phones John Trever, asking that he examine an old manuscript. It will turn out to be the first discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
February 18, 1967
Twenty-five Catholic students from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, impressed with Dave Wilkerson's book The Cross and the Switchblade and unsatisfied with their own Christian lives, meet for prayer and reportedly end up crying, laughing, fainting, and speaking in tongues as the Holy Spirit moves them.
February 18, 1984
Death in London of D.C.K. Watson, an Anglican priest, evangelist, and charismatic. He had been instrumental in greatly expanding attendance at the churches over which he presided and was an active promoter of world missions.
February 18, 2006
On this day in Christian history, Muslims burnt down the Victory Baptist Church, Alamuderi, Maiduguri, Nigeria.
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