March 1: Today in Christian History

March 1, 1546

George Wishart, who had preached reform, is burned at the stake for “heresy” in St. Andrews, Scotland.

March 1, 1562

French Protestants (called Huguenots) are attacked at Vassy while worshiping in a barn. The 2nd Duke of Guise orders the barn set on fire, killing over sixty of them and wounding one hundred more. This will set off a series of religious wars between French Roman Catholics and Protestants that will last almost forty years.

March 1, 1603

Death of Venerable Martyrius at the Zelenets monastery he founded. He had been much given to visions of Mary.

March 1, 1744

John Newton, who will one day write the hymn “Amazing Grace,” is seized by a naval press gang while ashore in England and forced into a brutal regime aboard a ship.

March 1, 1799

Johannes Theodorus Vanderkamp, missionary to South Africa, arrives in Capetown. He will redeem many slaves with his own money and break down European settlers’ resistance to mission work. Following the death of his wife, he will marry an indigenous African woman by whom he will have four children, leading to outrage among Europeans.

March 1, 1843

Fidelia Fisk sails from Boston Harbor for Smyrna on the Emma Isadora to begin mission work. She writes to her sisters, “It may be that my usefulness will greatly depend upon your prayers for me. Sisters, pray for me.”

March 1, 1919

Several Christian leaders join with other opponents of Japanese occupation to declare Korean independence. As a result they are arrested and thousands of Korea’s Christians become the butt of brutal retaliation by the Japanese. 

March 1, 1996

Death of Michael Oluwamuyide Adegbolagun, a leader and church builder in the Voice of Redemption Gospel Church of Nigeria.