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April 22, 1418: The Council of Constance ends, having finally ended the Great Western Schism. When the schism began nearly 40 years earlier, three men had reasonable claims to the papacy. The council deposed all three and elected Martin V. (Martin then turned around and rejected further councils' right to depose a pope.) Though that part of the council is regarded as a triumph, the council also hastily condemned Jan Hus, a Bohemian preacher and forerunner of Protestantism, and sentenced him to execution by burning. And since his teachings were based on those of John Wycliffe (c. 1329-1384), the council had the Bible translator's body dug up, burned, and thrown into the Swift River (see issue 68: Jan Hus).
April 22, 1724: German philosopher Immanuel Kant, a pivotal figure in the history of modern philosophy and theology, is born in Konigsberg, East Prussia.
April 22, 1669: Colonial religious leader Richard Mather (father of Increase, grandfather of Cotton) dies at age 63. He helped author the Bay Psalm Book and the Cambridge Platform, which served for many years as the standard doctrinal statement for New England Congregationalism (see issue 41: American Puritans).
April 22, 1864: The motto "In God We Trust," conceived during the Civil War, first appears on American coinage.
April 23, 1073: Hildebrand is elected pope, taking the name Gregory VII. The first pope to excommunicate a ruler (Henry IV), Gregory was driven out of Rome in 1084. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity," were his last words, "therefore I died in exile.
April 23, 1538: John Calvin and William Farel (whom Calvin was assisting) are banished from Geneva. The day before, Easter Sunday, both had refused to administer communion, saying the city was too full of vice to partake. Three years later, Calvin returned to the city he would forever be associated with (see issue 12: John Calvin).
April 23, 1968: The Evangelical United Brethren Church joins with the much larger Methodist Church, forming the United Methodist Church, the largest Methodist group in the world and America's second-largest Protestant denomination (after the Southern Baptist Convention).
April 24, 387: On this day,Augustine of Hippo writes in his autobiographical Confessions, "We were baptized and all anxiety for our past life vanished away." The 33-year-old had been a teacher of rhetoric and pagan philosophies at some of the Roman Empire's finest schools, but after great influence by his mother, Monica, and the famous bishop Ambrose, he turned to Christianity. His baptism by Ambrose, on Easter Sunday, marked his entrance into the church (see issue 15:Augustine and issue 67:Augustine).
April 24, 1581: Vincent de Paul, founder of the Lazarist Fathers and the Sisters of Charity, is born in Pouy, France. The Roman Catholic Churchnamed him patron saint of all works of charity because of his charity work during the Wars of Religion.
April 24, 1944: In "United States v. Ballard," the Supreme Court ruled that no governmental agency can determine "the truth or falsity of the beliefs or doctrines" of anyone—even if the beliefs "may seem incredible, if not preposterous to most people." But the court also reiterated its position that while freedom of belief is absolute, the freedom to act on those beliefs is not.
April 25, 1214: Louis IX, king of France and saint, is born. Leader of the Seventh and Eighth Crusades (he died on the latter), he was known for his humility: he wore hair shirts and visited hospitals—where he emptied the bedpans (see issue 40: The Crusades).
April 25, 1599: Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan lord protector of England, is born near Cambridge. As lord protector he sought to allow more freedom of religion.
April 25, 1887: Radio evangelist Charles E. Fuller, known for his "Old Fashioned Revival Hour" and for cofounding Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, is born in Los Angeles.
April 26, 1521: After Charles V promises to take firmer measures against his doctrines, Luther leaves the Diet of Worms. A month later, his teachings are formally condemned (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).
April 26, 1877: Residents of Minnesota observe a state-wide day of prayer, asking deliverance from a plague of grasshoppers that had ruined thousands of acres of crops. The plague ended during that summer.
April 26, 1992: Worshipers celebrate the first Russian Orthodox Easter in Moscow in 74 years.
April 27, 1667: Blind, bitter, and poor, Puritan poet John Milton sells for ten pounds the copyright for Paradise Lost—a book that would influence English thought and language nearly as much as the King James Version and the plays of Shakespeare. The theme of the epic appears in its opening lines: "Of man's disobedience, and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden.
April 27, 1775: Moravian minister and missionary Peter Boehler dies. He met John Wesley in 1737 while both were sailing to minister in America, and his assurance of faith and belief in joyous, instantaneous conversion left a permanent mark on Wesley (see issue 1: Nicolaus Zinzendorf and the Moravians).
April 28, 1789: In the South Pacific, a band of hedonistic sailors stages the famous mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers then sailed to uninhabited Pitcairn Island, where they soon fell into drinking and fighting. Only one man and several women (taken earlier as slaves) and children survived. The man, Alexander Smith, discovered the ship's neglected Bible, repented, and transformed the community. The Bible is still on display in a Pitcairn church.
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