August 13, 523: John I is consecrated pope. Shortly after his appointment, John became the first pope to leave Italy—with unfortunate results. He traveled to Constantinople, the center of Eastern Christianity, but on his return was imprisoned by the Arian king of Italy, Theodoric, who suspected John of conspiring with the king’s Byzantine antagonists.
August 13, 662: Maximus Confessor, the Eastern leader in the fight against Monothelitism (the heresy that Christ had divine, but no human, will), dies after being tortured for his beliefs.
August 13, 1587: Members of Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition to Roanoke baptises Manko, the first American Indian convert to Protestantism.
August 13, 1667: Jeremy Taylor, English scholar, theologian, and author of Holy Living and Holy Dying, dies at 54.
August 13, 1727: Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, at age 27, organizes Bohemian Protestant refugees into the Moravian community of “Unitas Fratrum” (united brotherhood) (see issue 1: Nicolaus Zinzendorf).
August 13, 1908: Ira D. Sankey, best known as the music leader in D.L. Moody’s evangelistic crusades, dies (see issue 25: Dwight L. Moody).
