May 10: Today in Christian History

May 10, 1508

At the insistence of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo begins work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He writes this note to himself, “On this day, May 10, 1508, I Michelangelo, sculptor, have received on account from our Holy Lord Pope Julius II five hundred papal ducats toward the painting of the ceiling of the papal Sistine Chapel, on which I am beginning work today.”

May 10, 1787

Death of Synesius of Siberia, a famous monk of the Orthodox Church.

May 10, 1908

At her urging, Ana M. Jarvis’s church in Philadelphia holds one of the first Mothers’ Day services. Ana supplies the church with white carnations, which had been her mom’s favorite flower.

May 10, 1910

Death in Bristol, England, of hymnwriter Anna Laetitia Waring. Born Quaker, she had become an Anglican and was a social reformer active in prison visitation. Her best-known hymn was “In Heavenly Love Abiding.”

May 10, 1917

Death in Hitchin, England, of Bible scholar Henry Barclay Swete, an Anglican who had stood firmly for the Bible when modern scholarship attacked it. He was a founder of the Journal of Theological Studies and wrote The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint. He was described as a “pillar of Christian learning and a pattern of Christian life.”

May 10, 1918

Edgar Stillman Kelley’s choral work The Pilgrim’s Progress is produced at the Cincinnati May Festival. His music was in the late Romantic tradition.

May 10, 1918

Bishop C.H. Phillips speaks against a movement to unite the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church with the African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches, a plan which he says does not answer crucial questions of belief and organization. As it turns out, the movement will founder on its inability to agree on a name.

May 10, 1941

German bombers hit the Salvation Army’s International Headquarters in London, destroying many documents of historic interest.

May 10, 2001

Death from a heart attack of Subhang Sodemba, who had founded an evangelistic and orphanage work in the Himalayas.

Did you miss out on our Christian History Series? Catch up on significant events that happened on May 9 in Christian History. 

Do you also want a glimpse at the significant events that happened on May 11 in Christian History? Read here!