February 3: Today in Christian History

February 3, 865

Death in Germany of Anskar, an early English or Irish missionary who had tried repeatedly to evangelize Scandinavia.

February 3, 1238

Mongols surround the city of Vladimir, whose citizens, including Orthodox Christians, vow to resist to the last man to defend God’s churches. The city will fall on the fourteenth of that same month.

February 3, 1399

Death in London of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose political struggles with powerful prelates led him to support the religious reformer John Wycliffe.

February 3, 1469

Death in Mainz, Germany, of Johannes Gutenberg, a developer of movable type, which will become a powerful factor in the spread of the Protestant Reformation. 

February 3, 1738

John Wesley arrives in London, having fled the colony of Georgia, where his ministry had been a serious failure.

February 3, 1767

The British House of Lords rules against the Corporation of London which, to raise money, had established heavy fines for anyone refusing to stand for office if nominated, and then nominated many dissenters, knowing that they could not take the oath required under the Test Act.

February 3, 1788

Richard Johnson, first Christian cleric appointed to Australia, preaches his first sermon in that country.

February 3, 1832

Death in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England, of George Crabbe, a Church of England vicar and notable poet.

February 3, 1943

The Allied troopship S.S. Dorchester is torpedoed by a German sub near Greenland and goes down with a loss of 600 lives. The event is notable for the selflessness of four chaplains, Rev. Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), Rev. George Lansing Fox (Methodist), Father John Washington (a Catholic priest) and Alexander David Goode (a Jewish rabbi), who gave up their lifejackets to save other men.

February 3, 1985

Desmond Tutu of South Africa becomes Johannesburg’s first black Anglican bishop.

February 3, 1998

Execution in Texas of Karla Faye Tucker, a murderess, who converted to Christianity on death row and died praising Jesus. Movies and documentaries will be made about her life.

February 3, 2005

The Islamic city council of Demre, Turkey (formerly the Christian city, Myra), votes to replace the town’s traditional bronze statue of St. Nicholas of Myra with an effigy of a fat man with a red fur suit.