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April 29, 1380: Italian mystic Catherine of Siena dies from exhaustion brought on by her efforts to bring unity to the church. Her visions, experienced since childhood, and her persistent pleading led Pope Gregory XI to return the papal seat to Rome from Avignon, France (see issue 30: Woman in the Medieval Church).
April 29, 1429: Joan of Arc, who had experienced mystical visions and voices since childhood, enters the besieged French city of Orleans to lead a victory over the English. The next day, the English retreated, but, because it was a Sunday, Joan refused to allow any pursuit. On a sortie the next year, The English captured Joan and put her on trial for heresy (see issue 30: Woman in the Medieval Church).
April 29, 1607: English settlers establish the first Anglican church in the American colonies at Cape Henry, Virginia.
April 30, 304: The last and most punishing anti-Christian edict during Roman Emperor Diocletian's reign is published. The ensuing carnage was so horrific that it was said even the coliseum lions got tired. The man behind the edict,Augustus Galerius, finally issued an edict of toleration on April 30, 311—just days before dying of a disease known as "being eaten with worms" (see issue 27: Persecution in the Early Church).
April 30, 418: Roman Emperor Honorius (395-423) issues a decree against Pelagianism, a heresy teaching that man can take the initial and fundamental steps towards salvation by his own efforts, apart from divine grace (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).
April 30, 1562: Two ships carrying 150 Huguenot (French Protestant) immigrants arrive off the coast of northeast Florida. The settlers established a colony at Parris Island, South Carolina, but abandoned it two years later due to a lack of supplies (see issue 71: Huguenots).
April 30, 1822: Hannibal Goodwin, rector of the Episcopal House of Prayer in Newark, New Jersey, is born in Taughannock, New York. Though his main passion was making the Bible "come to life" for the children in his church, he dreamed up 24 inventions during his life and received 15 patents. Today we remember him primarily as the father of celluloid film for photography.
May 1, 1572: Pius V, pope from 1566, dies at age 68. A reforming pope, he ordered bishops and clergy to accept the propositions of the Council of Trent, but he also vehemently opposed the Reformation. He rarely hesitated to use the Inquisition in Italy and hastily excommunicated England's Elizabeth I (creating serious problems for English Catholics).
May 1, 1873: Missionary-explorer David Livingstone dies. Responsible for "opening up" central Africa and for popularizing missions to that continent, Livingstone himself only made one convert—who later backslid. Still, he is widely considered one of Christianity's missionary heroes (see issue 56: David Livingstone).
May 2, 373: Church father Athanasius, "the father of Orthodoxy," dies. He attended the Council of Nicea, and after becoming bishop of Alexandria, he fought Arianism and won. He was also the first to list the New Testament canonical books as we know them today (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).
May 2, 1507: Reformer Martin Luther is consecrated a priest, a role in which he would serve for 13 years before being excommunicated (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).
May 2, 1559: John Knox, having spent several years on the Continent studying and writing, returns to Scotland to help lead the Reformation there (see issue 46: John Knox).
May 2, 1821: Methodist missionary William Taylor is born in Virginia. He ministered to miners during the California gold rush and later became missionary Bishop of Africa (1884-1896). Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, named itself after him (see issue 66: How the West Was Really Won).
May 3, 1512: The Fifth Lateran Council, the last attempt at papal reform before the Lutheran revolt, opens in Rome.
May 3, 1675: A Massachusetts law goes into effect requiring church doors to be locked during services. Officials enacted the law because too many people were leaving before sermons were over.
May 3, 1738: English preacher George Whitefield, the most famous religious figure of the 1700s, arrives in America for his first of seven visits. In his lifetime, Whitefield preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million hearers (see issue 38: George Whitefield).
May 3, 1814: Thomas Coke, the first English bishop of the Methodist Church, dies. John Wesley sent him to oversee the American branch of Methodism in 1784; he later handed that responsibility to Francis Asbury (see issue 45: Camp Meetings and Circuit Riders, issue 2: John Wesley, and issue 69: Charles and John Wesley).
May 3, 1861: The Southern Congress approves a bill installing chaplains in Confederate armies. The American military did not normally employ chaplains, but they became a permanent fixture during and after the Civil War. Between 100,000 and 200,000 Union soldiers and approximately 150,000 Confederate troops converted to christianity during wartime revivals (see issue 33: Christianity & the Civil War).
May 4, 1923: Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, editor of the British journal The Expositor (which included articles by many leading scholars) and of a 50-volume Expositor's Bible (published 1888-1905), dies.
May 4, 1493: In the bull "Inter caetera," Pope Alexander VI sets the boundary between Spanish and Portuguese lands in the New World.
May 5, 553: The Second Council of Constantinople convenes under the presidency of Eutychius, the city's new patriarch. The council, loaded with bishops from the Eastern church, attacked Nestorianism (a "heresy"—many have questioned that anathema—that overemphasizes Christ's dual nature as God and man). Nestorian Christians exist to this day (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).
May 5, 1525: Frederick III, the elector of Saxony also called "Frederick the Wise," dies. An avid collector of relics and a supporter of modern scholarship (he founded the University of Wittenberg), Frederick protected Martin Luther after the Diet of Worms condemned the reformer (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).
May 5, 1813: Christian existentialist Soren Kierkegaard is born in Copenhagen. The Danish philosopher believed no philosophical system could explain the human condition; the experience of reality was what mattered, not the "idea" of it. His most famous and his first book, Either/Or, sought in part to explain why he suddenly broke off his engagement.
May 5, 1816: The American Bible Society (ABS) organizes in New York to distribute the Bible throughout the world. The organization has distributed hundreds of millions of Bibles in thousands of languages worldwide.
May 5, 1925: Dayton, Tennessee, teacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution in his classroom. (He volunteered to admit violating a recent statute prohibiting such teaching so that the law could be tested in court.) The resulting trial—the first "trial of the century"—led to public mockery of fundamentalist Christians, driving them into a more self-contained subculture (see issue 55: The Monkey Trial and the Rise of Fundamentalism).
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