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March 18, 386: Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem from 315, dies. Best known for his series of discourses given during Lent for those to be baptized on Easter, he early on advocated the veneration of relics and argued for transubstantiation—the doctrine that the bread and wine of Communion become the actual body and blood of Christ.
March 18, 1123: The First Lateran Council opens in Rome. Convoked by Callistus II, it repeated and confirmed earlier decrees. The Western church, however, remembers its importance as being the first "ecumenical council" held in the West.
March 18, 1314: Thirty-nine Knights Templar are burned at the stake in Paris. Though few others besides Dante championed the innocence of the oft-maligned military order, most scholars now agree with him. Created to protect pilgrims going to the Holy Land, had become wealthy after the crusades. Perhaps because of jealously, they were accused of sodomy, blasphemy, and heresy (see issue 40: The Crusades).
March 18, 1861: London's Metropolitan Tabernacle, the sanctuary of English Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, opens. Spurgeon had insisted that the enormous building employ Greek architecture because the New Testament was written in Greek—a decision that influenced church architecture throughout the world (see issue 29: Charles Spurgeon).
March 18, 1885: The "Cambridge Seven," young aristocrats who decided to become missionaries to China—and thus became celebrities back home—arrive in Shanghai (see issue 52: Hudson Taylor).
March 19, 1229: Having negotiated a treaty with Muslims for Christian access to Jerusalem, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (a reluctant participant in the sixth crusade) enters the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and crowns himself king. But his peace treaty was denounced by members of both faiths, and the same day the Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem pronounced an interdict on the city. Frederick was later excommunicated for making peace instead of war (see issue 40: The Crusades).
March 19, 1684: Jean Astruc, the founder of modern Pentateuchal criticism, is born in France. In 1753 he published an anonymous treatise positing that Moses used two earlier documents—called "Yahweh" and "Elohim" to designate which name for God was used in each—when he wrote the Pentateuch. The theory, which was first met with ridicule, was later expanded by J.G. Eichhorn.
March 19, 1813: Missionary-explorer David Livingstone is born in Blantyre, Scotland. Though he made only one African convert (who later backslid), he became Britain's missionary hero of the day and always considered himself a missionary more than an explorer (see issue 56: David Livingstone).
March 19, 1860: William Jennings Bryan, the best-known fundamentalist in America from the Civil War to the Great Depression, is born in Salem, Illinois. A three-time presidential candidate, he was Wilson's secretary of state and the prosecuting attorney in the famous Scopes Trial in Tennessee (see issue 55: The Monkey Trial and the Rise of Fundamentalism).
March 19, 1928: Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung is born in Germany. Appointed the official theologian of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council, he was later denied permission to teach as a Catholic theologian when his views began to challenge many traditional doctrines (like papal infallibility).
March 20, 687: Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne and a vocal supporter of Celtic practices over Roman ones, dies. Shortly thereafter the Lindisfarne Gospels monks created created in his honor (see issue 60: How the Irish Were Saved).
March 20, 1747: Severely ill with tuberculosis, Presbyterian missionary David Brainerd ends his work among the Native Americans of Delaware (see issue 77: Jonathan Edwards).
March 20, 1852: Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of famous Congregational minister Lyman Beecher, publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin (which had been serialized in an antislavery newspaper). The book sold one million copies and was so influential in arousing antislavery sentiment that Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said upon meeting Stowe in 1863: "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!" (see issue 33: Christianity and the Civil War).
March 21, 547: Italian monk Benedict, author of the Benedictine rule (which established the pattern for European monastic life through the Middle Ages), dies at Monte Cassino. In 1965 Pope Paul VI proclaimed him the patron saint of Europe.
March 21, 1146: At the urging of Bernard of Clairvaux (one of the most famous theologians and monks of his day), France's King Louis VII announces he will lead the Second Crusade to regain the crusader capital of Edessa. When he failed two years later, Christians were devastated that a crusade preached by a moral exemplar and led by royalty could fail (see issue 24: Bernard of Clairvaux and issue 40: The Crusades).
March 21, 1556: After denying earlier forced recantations, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, a crucial figure in the English Reformation and author of the Book of Common Prayer, is burned at the stake by Queen Mary. He reportedly thrust his arm into the flames, saying the hand that had signed the recantations should be the first to burn (see issue 48: Thomas Cranmer).
March 21, 1685: German organist and composer Johann Sebastian Bach is born in Eisenach, Germany. Though largely unrecognized in his day and forgotten for years after his death, he has since become recognized as one of history's unequalled musical masters. But music was never just music to Bach. Nearly three-fourths of his 1,000 compositions were written for use in worship. Between his musical genius, his devotion to Christ, and the effect of his music, he has gained recognition in many circles as the "Fifth Evangelist.
March 21, 1656: James Ussher, calvinist theologian and archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, dies. Famous for his chronology of the Bible (which placed the creation of the world in 4004 B.C.), he also created a history of the Latin Church and the articles of faith for the Church in Ireland. Respected by Christians of all traditions, he was given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey.
March 21, 1747: Slave trading sea captain John Newton dramatically converts to Christianity during a violent storm. He is best known for penning the hymn "Amazing Grace" (see issue 31: The Golden Age of Hymns).
March 21, 1788: Charles Wesley, brother of John and author of 8,989 hymns (including "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "And Can It Be," "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," "Soldiers of Christ, Arise," and "Rejoice! the Lord Is King!"), dies at age 81 (see issue 2: John Wesley, issue 31: Golden Age of Hmyns, and issue 69: Charles and John Wesley).
March 21, 1844: William Miller's first proposed date of Christ's return—between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844—ends with little fanfare. Miller soon changed the date to October 22, 1844, but when that passed his followers became disillusioned and premillennialism experienced a massive setback. The Adventist churches grew from the Millerite movement (see issue 61: The End of the World).
March 21, 1871: Journalist Henry M. Stanley, on assignment for the New York Herald, begins his search for David Livingstone in Africa. After he found him (and uttered the famous words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"), the Scottish missionary converted him. Stanley was persuaded to return to Africa years later to continue missionary work and exploration (see issue 56: David Livingstone).
March 21, 1900: After the death of its founder, evangelist Dwight L. Moody, Chicago's Bible Institute for Home and Foreign Missions changes its name to Moody Bible Institute (see issue 25: D.L. Moody).
March 21, 1965: Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., leads more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators on a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. By the time they reached their destination four days later, the group had expanded to 25,000 (see issue 65: The Ten Most Influential Christians of the Twentieth Century).
March 22, 337: Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, dies at age 47. As emperor, he issued an edict officially tolerating Christianity, though he did little to stave off paganism. He also summoned the Council of Nicea to settle the Arian dispute over the nature of Christ (see issue 57: The Conversion of Rome).
March 22, 1638: Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony. Questioned about her teachings on grace, she insisted she had received divine revelations. When her examiners asked how she knew these came from God, she replied, "How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his son, being a breach of the Sixth Commandment?" Although Hutchinson repented of her "errors," her questioners decided she was lying and banished her from the colony (see issue 41: American Puritans).
March 22, 1758: Jonathan Edwards, America's greatest theologian, dies from the effects of a smallpox vaccination after arriving in New Jersey to accept the presidency of what is now Princeton University (see issue 8: Jonathan Edwards and issue 77: Jonathan Edwards).
March 23, 332 (traditional date): Gregory the Illuminator, who converted a nation before Constantine even embraced Christianity, dies. A missionary to his homeland of Armenia, he converted King Tiridates, and much of the kingdom followed suit. Soon Christianity was established as the national religion, with Gregory as its bishop (see issue 57: Conversion of Rome).
March 23, 1540: Waltham Abbey in Essex becomes the last monastery in England to transfer its allegiance from the Catholic Church to the newly established Church of England.
March 23, 1743: George Friedrich Handel's oratorio "Messiah" plays in London and is attended by the king, who stood instantly at the opening notes of the Hallelujah Chorus—a tradition ever since (though some historians have suggested it was because he was partially deaf and mistook it for the national anthem). The oratorio was actually quite controversial, since it used the words of God in the theater, and the title only made things worse. Handel compromised a bit by dropping the "blasphemous" title from handbills. It was instead called "A New Sacred Oratorio.
March 23, 1966: The Archbishop of Canterbury meets at the Vatican with Pope Paul VI—the first such meeting between Anglican and Catholic leaders since Henry VIII broke with Rome more than 400 years before.
March 24, 1208: After England's irreligious King John opposed his choice for Archbishop of Canterbury, Pope Innocent III places Britain under an interdict. Innocent had all religious services canceled, churches closed, and the dead were not given Christian burials until John surrendered. Soon after, the king signed the Magna Carta, in which the first article affirms "That the Church of England shall be free . . .
March 24, 1816: Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury, age 71, preaches his last sermon. The sermon, delivered at the Old Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia, lasted an hour—even though Asbury, weakened, spoke while lying on a table (see issue 45: Camp Meetings & Circuit Riders).
March 24, 1820: Blind hymnwriter Fanny Crosby, author of more than 9,000 hymns, is born. Her works include "Blessed Assurance," "All the Way My Savior Leads Me," "To God Be the Glory," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," "Safe in the Arms of Jesus," "Rescue the Perishing," and "Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.
March 24, 1980: Roman Catholic archbishop Oscar Romero, a vocal opponent of the San Salvador military, is assassinated while saying mass in his country. Several men, believed to be part of a death squad, were arrested for the murder but were later released.
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