February 19, 842
Icons are restored to eastern churches with solemn processions on the first Sunday of Lent following the iconoclast wars, an event that will later be observed as the “Feast of Orthodoxy.”
February 19, 1414
Death in Canterbury, Kent, England, of Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England. He had been a violent persecutor of the Lollards, Wycliffe’s reform followers.
February 19, 1568
Burial of Miles Coverdale, who had produced the first complete printed edition of the Scriptures in English, completing William Tyndale’s Bible following Tyndale’s execution. Coverdale’s version of the Psalms will long be used by the Church of England.
February 19, 1672
Death in Boston, Massachusetts, of Charles Chauncy, eighteen years the president of Harvard College. A Congregational clergyman, his insistance on full immersion for baptism had been controversial in New England.
February 19, 1716
Death in Bergen, Norway, of Dorothe Engelbretsdotter, once highly regarded for her Christian verses, which included an evening and a morning hymn.
February 19, 1735
Death in Germantown, Pennsylvania, of Alexander Mack, leader of America’s German Baptists.
February 19, 1812
The Caravan sails from Salem Harbor with America’s first foreign missionaries aboard: the Judsons and Newells.
February 19, 1869
Death near Melrose, Scotland, of Elizabeth Clephane. A Scottish orphan, she wrote two memorable hymns: “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” and “The Ninety and Nine.”
February 19, 1882
Death in Toronto, Canada, of Methodist minister Egerton Ryerson who had been a notabale educator in Canada. Although most of his reforms and innovations had high merit, his policies for the education of native Americans will be censured by future generations.
February 19, 1896
Death of Xi Shengmo. After years of bondage to opium, he had become a Christian and the Holy Spirit freed him after an agonizing battle. He then adopted his last name which meant “conqueror of demons.” He went on to establish fifty opium refuges in four provinces where prayer was a major factor in treatment of the addicts. Many became Christians and applied his methods to other addicts.
February 19, 1948
Father Butrus Sowmy conveys the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls to American John Trever, whom he had contacted the day before. Trever requests permission to photograph them and sends the photographs to famed archaeologist William Albright, who will confirm the value of the manuscripts.
February 19, 1954
Death of evangelist Lionel Bale Fletcher in Sydney, Australia.
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