May 1: Today in Christian History

May 1, 1532

Arrest of Maria Cazzala in Toledo, Spain, accused of Lutheranism. Her trial will drag on for years and include torture.

May 1, 1727

Death in Paris of Francois de Paris, a saintly Jansenist. Extraordinary miracles will occur at his tomb. Louis Basile Carré de Montgeron, a Conseiller au Parlement, who was originally a skeptic, will fill three volumes of claims with certified proofs of the miracles.

May 1, 1839

Baptism in Bombay of Dhanjibhai Naoroji, formerly a Parsi. Despite threats, bribes, and false testimony against him, he will train for the ministry in Scotland and become an evangelist, translator, educator, and leader in the Indian church.

May 1, 1883

Anton Rubinstein’s sacred opera The Tower of Babel is given in Boston by the Handel and Haydn Society.

May 1, 1893

Measures against Stundists (Baptists) are set to go into effect in Czarist Russia. This includes taking their children and placing them in care of Russian Orthodox Church believers, identifying them as sectarians on their passports, prohibiting them from operating schools for their children, limiting their hire, and forbidding them burial in consecrated ground.

May 1, 1939

Theodore Epp launches the “Back to the Bible Broadcast” in Lincoln, Nebraska.

May 1, 1942

Archbishop Edward Mooney, the new leader of the Catholic Church in Detroit, instructs Father Charles Coughlin to cease all non-pastoral activities on pain of being defrocked. Coughlin, a popular radio broadcaster and an ardent supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal, had increasingly sided with German socialism (Nazism) and attacked Jews and Communists in his radio broadcasts.

May 1, 1955

Baptism of Esperança Berta, who will become a notable woman in the Anglican Church of Mozambique—bishop’s wife, church planter, and inspirational leader. Five thousand people will turn out for her funeral in 1998.

May 1, 1982

Death of Ralph Darby Williams. The Assembly of God missionary had spent his life equipping South American saints.

May 1, 1992

A mob of several hundred Muslims rushes the Assembly of God Church at Imbaba, a poor section of Cairo, after attending Friday prayer at the mosque.