Today in Christian History
January 25
1077
Emperor Henry IV submits to Pope Gregory VII at Canossa, Italy, and will be forced to stand for three days barefoot in the snow.
1164
Council of Clarendon assembles and King Henry II of England threatens the bishops of the realm with death if they do not yield him more jurisdiction over crimes by clergy. Archbishop Thomas à Becket concedes in order to save lives.
1366
Death in Ulm, Germany, of Henry Suso, a fanatical ascetic and mystic, who practiced austerities and tortures on himself as penance for twenty-two years. For example, he bound a wooden cross to his back, in which he affixed thirty spikes in memory of Christ’s wounds. On this instrument of torture he stretched himself at night for eight years.
1534
German Reformer Martin Luther gave his understanding of “conversion” in a sermon: ‘To be converted to God means to believe in Christ, to believe that He is our Mediator and that we have eternal life through Him.’
1720
Muslims in Constantinople behead Auxentius who has refused to convert to Islam despite being beaten with an iron bar.
1841
The Oxford Movement in England reached its apex with the appearance of John Henry Newman’s Tract No. 90. The storm of controversy which ensued brought the series (begun in 1833) to an end. Later, Newman resigned his Anglican parish and in 1845 converted to Roman Catholicism.
1861
Missouri Synod Lutheran founder C.F.W. Walther wrote in a letter: ‘The church, as a fellowship…of those who are born again… corresponds to the nature of living Christianity, whereas…the church as a fellowship of the orthodox, whether converted or unconverted, will necessarily lead to a dead Christianity.’
1907
Death in Wisconsin of Onangwatgo [Cornelius Hill], an Oneida chief and Episcopal priest.
1922
Death in England of Madame Tchertkoff, a Russian evangelical noblewoman whose estates and mission buildings had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks when she was eighty-five years old. She had escaped to Finland and from there to England. When she had sold a property she owned in England, the new owners kindly allowed her to live there the remainder of her life.
1944
In the Anglican Diocese of Hong Kong and South China, Florence Tim-Oi Lee of Macao was ordained a priest in Kwangtung Province, China. Although considered an emergency wartime measure (owing to the lack of male priests in Macao), it nevertheless made Florence Tim-Oi Lee the first-ever ordained female Anglican clergyperson.
1959
Pope John XXIII, 90 days after his election, announced his intention to hold an ecumenical church council. (The Vatican II Council officially opened October 11, 1962 and closed December 8, 1965.)
1963
Emmanuel Abraham is elected president of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, a position he will hold for twenty-two years until January 25, 1985. During many of those years, he will also serve as a leading diplomat for Emperor Haile Sellassie and the Ethiopian government.
1980
Frederick Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, retires. He had been involved in the translation of the New English Bible and was an advocate for the ordination of women.
1986
Death in Toronto of Oswald J. Smith. He had founded the People’s Church in Toronto, raised millions of dollars to support missions and written thirty-five books which had been translated into one-hundred-and-twenty-eight languages.
2008
United Christian Women are incorporated into a non-profit organization in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to encourage young women to remain strong in faith.
