Christian History
The material below has been obtained from CT Newsletters | Christianity Today
The material below has been obtained from CT Newsletters | Christianity Today
Your donation will help to maintain Pilgrim People’s sound worship and preaching
2026
January - February
February 3, 1468: Johannes Gutenberg, who developed a printing press with movable type that helped the Protestant Reformation, died at age 67.
February 6, 1564: Carried to church in a chair, John Calvin preached his last sermon three months before his death.
February 7, 1478: Thomas More, lord chancellor of England during the English Reformation, was born. He supported the punishment of heretics and Protestants like Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He retired from office rather than acknowledge Henry VIII's divorce but was beheaded for refusing to acknowledge Henry as head of the church.
February 3, 1809: German composer Felix Mendelssohn, a very devout Lutheran, was born in Hamburg. His Elijah oratorio is well known; and he was responsible for rediscovering Bach, whose music had been forgotten for 80 years.
February 6, 1820: Eighty-six free black colonists sailed from New York to Sierra Leone, Africa. Though white abolitionists initially supported such emigration efforts, most free blacks denounced the effort as racist and ultimately proslavery.
February 3, 1904: The foundation stone of St Luke’s Church of England at 18 Charlotte Street, Brisbane, was laid by His Excellency, Sir Herbert Chermside, Governor of Queensland. The church became the head quarters of the Anglican Church Mission until the 1950s and as the meeting place of the Synod of the Diocese until 1977, after which St Luke’s was no longer needed for church purposes. It was converted to a restaurant, the Pancake Manor, in 1979.
February 4, 1906: Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Germany. He opposed the Nazis. Believing that Hitler was like a madman "driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders," he was privy to various plots to kill the leader. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and eventually hanged—just days before Allied troops liberated the concentration camp where he was held.
February 7, 1938: After years of being closely watched by Nazi secret police, Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller was put on trial. He was subsequently confined in a concentration camp, but he survived and went on to hold a leadership role in the World Council of Churches from 1948-1968.
February 7, 1967: David Unaipon (Ngunaitponi) (1872 – 1967), an Aboriginal Australian preacher, inventor, author, orator and campaigner, featured on the Australian $50 note, died in the Tailem Bend Hospital, South Australia. He was from the Point McLeay Mission which was established by the Aborigines’ Friends’
Association (AFA). Christianity had a major influence on his life. He later said he owed much to his study of the
bible and his father’s Christian example. The mission provided opportunities for David Unaipon to explore
other interests including music and drawing. Unaipon played the church organ for a number of years and
became a master of Handel’s The Messiah. The mission had books and journals and Unaipon pored over pages
of scientific works. He became intrigued by the idea of perpetual motion. He developed plans for a flying
machine with spinning blades and a sheep-shearing handpiece. He received no credit or financial award for his
designs yet some of them were later adopted. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He prepared a
manuscript Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines that would not be published under his name until
some eighty years later. David Unaipon had the wisdom and passion to educate himself and others. He was a
master of the English language and a gifted writer. He was a thinker, driven to make a difference to the lives of
Aboriginal people.
Hundreds of plaster Baby Jesus figurines are for sale in stalls in the
Niños Dios market of Mexico's capital, where many of the city's
Catholic faithful go early each year for help in preparing their own
Niños Jesús for presentation at church on 2 February.
Candlemas, (El Día de la Candelaria) is a special day for Catholics in
Mexico, who embrace the long-held local tradition of bringing
their own beautifully dressed plaster Christ Child to their parish for
a blessing.
Candelmas marks 40 days after Jesus was born and he was taken
to the temple to be presented to God.
In Mexico, the plaster Niños Jesús are typically dressed in lacy and
ribboned white gowns, like those worn for baptisms, especially the
first year the figurine is owned. In subsequent years, people have
dressed their Niños Jesús as a guardian angel or a favourite saint.
At the market, some vendors sell clothing to dress the Christ child
as a doctor or scholar…
[Anita Snow, NCR (National Catholic Reporter. USA) 02 February copyright
2026. More https://tinyurl.com/3be8zrpb]
(In Bruce Mullan’s Daily Mail. 05.02.26)
An Annual Church
February 6, 1564: Carried to church in a chair, John Calvin preached his last sermon three months before his death.
February 7, 1478: Thomas More, lord chancellor of England during the English Reformation, was born. He supported the punishment of heretics and Protestants like Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He retired from office rather than acknowledge Henry VIII's divorce but was beheaded for refusing to acknowledge Henry as head of the church.
February 3, 1809: German composer Felix Mendelssohn, a very devout Lutheran, was born in Hamburg. His Elijah oratorio is well known; and he was responsible for rediscovering Bach, whose music had been forgotten for 80 years.
February 6, 1820: Eighty-six free black colonists sailed from New York to Sierra Leone, Africa. Though white abolitionists initially supported such emigration efforts, most free blacks denounced the effort as racist and ultimately proslavery.
February 3, 1904: The foundation stone of St Luke’s Church of England at 18 Charlotte Street, Brisbane, was laid by His Excellency, Sir Herbert Chermside, Governor of Queensland. The church became the head quarters of the Anglican Church Mission until the 1950s and as the meeting place of the Synod of the Diocese until 1977, after which St Luke’s was no longer needed for church purposes. It was converted to a restaurant, the Pancake Manor, in 1979.
February 4, 1906: Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Germany. He opposed the Nazis. Believing that Hitler was like a madman "driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders," he was privy to various plots to kill the leader. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and eventually hanged—just days before Allied troops liberated the concentration camp where he was held.
February 7, 1938: After years of being closely watched by Nazi secret police, Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller was put on trial. He was subsequently confined in a concentration camp, but he survived and went on to hold a leadership role in the World Council of Churches from 1948-1968.
February 7, 1967: David Unaipon (Ngunaitponi) (1872 – 1967), an Aboriginal Australian preacher, inventor, author, orator and campaigner, featured on the Australian $50 note, died in the Tailem Bend Hospital, South Australia. He was from the Point McLeay Mission which was established by the Aborigines’ Friends’
Association (AFA). Christianity had a major influence on his life. He later said he owed much to his study of the
bible and his father’s Christian example. The mission provided opportunities for David Unaipon to explore
other interests including music and drawing. Unaipon played the church organ for a number of years and
became a master of Handel’s The Messiah. The mission had books and journals and Unaipon pored over pages
of scientific works. He became intrigued by the idea of perpetual motion. He developed plans for a flying
machine with spinning blades and a sheep-shearing handpiece. He received no credit or financial award for his
designs yet some of them were later adopted. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He prepared a
manuscript Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines that would not be published under his name until
some eighty years later. David Unaipon had the wisdom and passion to educate himself and others. He was a
master of the English language and a gifted writer. He was a thinker, driven to make a difference to the lives of
Aboriginal people.
Hundreds of plaster Baby Jesus figurines are for sale in stalls in the
Niños Dios market of Mexico's capital, where many of the city's
Catholic faithful go early each year for help in preparing their own
Niños Jesús for presentation at church on 2 February.
Candlemas, (El Día de la Candelaria) is a special day for Catholics in
Mexico, who embrace the long-held local tradition of bringing
their own beautifully dressed plaster Christ Child to their parish for
a blessing.
Candelmas marks 40 days after Jesus was born and he was taken
to the temple to be presented to God.
In Mexico, the plaster Niños Jesús are typically dressed in lacy and
ribboned white gowns, like those worn for baptisms, especially the
first year the figurine is owned. In subsequent years, people have
dressed their Niños Jesús as a guardian angel or a favourite saint.
At the market, some vendors sell clothing to dress the Christ child
as a doctor or scholar…
[Anita Snow, NCR (National Catholic Reporter. USA) 02 February copyright
2026. More https://tinyurl.com/3be8zrpb]
(In Bruce Mullan’s Daily Mail. 05.02.26)
An Annual Church
January 28, 814: Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, died. He was, in his day, not only one of the greatest political rulers of all time, but he was also more influential in church matters than the pope. He saw his task ‘to defend with our arms the holy Church of Christ against attacks by the heathen from any side and against devastation by the infidels’.
January 27, 1302: On a trumped-up charge of hostility to the church, Dante Alighieri was fined heavily and perpetually excluded from political office (he was a chief magistrate). Further condemned in March and driven out of Florence in April, Dante began writing The Divine Comedy, an epic poem in which he travels through hell, purgatory, and heaven.
January 28, 1547: England's Henry VIII, who split the church of England from Rome and presided over the founding of the Anglican church, died.
January 30, 1649: England's King Charles I, a devout Anglican but with Catholic sympathies staunchly defended the ‘divine right of kings’. He was executed after being convicted of treason under a Puritan-influenced Parliament.
January 31, 1686: King Louis XIV of France, having already revoked the Protestant-tolerating Edict of Nantes, ordered all Waldensian churches burned. The Waldensians, members of a pre-Reformation tradition that stressed love of Christ and his word and a life of poverty, were soon devastated: 2,000 killed, 2,000 ‘converted’ to Catholicism, and 8,000 imprisoned .
January 28, 1769: Thomas Middleton, first Anglican bishop of Calcutta, was born in England. While he oversaw a vast diocese covering all the territories of the East India Company, the church made some great advances, including the establishment of Bishop's College in Calcutta(a training college for missionaries in Asia).
February 3, 1788: The first Christian service in Australia was held at Sydney Cove. It was conducted by Rev Richard Johnson, chaplain in the colony, who sailed with his wife Mary with the First Fleet.
January 29, 2003: Rev Sir Alan Edgar Walker OBE, Australian theologian, evangelist, social reformer, broadcaster and activist, and Superintendent of Wesley Mission (formerly Central Methodist Mission), died at an aged care centre on Sydney's North Shore, aged 91.
February 1, 2005: Rev Gordon Powell AM KCSJ*, Presbyterian and Congregational Church minister, broadcaster and writer died. He preached to large congregations at Collins Street Independent Church and Scots Presbyterian Church in Melbourne and St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Sydney. (*KCSJ Knight Commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem).
January 27, 1302: On a trumped-up charge of hostility to the church, Dante Alighieri was fined heavily and perpetually excluded from political office (he was a chief magistrate). Further condemned in March and driven out of Florence in April, Dante began writing The Divine Comedy, an epic poem in which he travels through hell, purgatory, and heaven.
January 28, 1547: England's Henry VIII, who split the church of England from Rome and presided over the founding of the Anglican church, died.
January 30, 1649: England's King Charles I, a devout Anglican but with Catholic sympathies staunchly defended the ‘divine right of kings’. He was executed after being convicted of treason under a Puritan-influenced Parliament.
January 31, 1686: King Louis XIV of France, having already revoked the Protestant-tolerating Edict of Nantes, ordered all Waldensian churches burned. The Waldensians, members of a pre-Reformation tradition that stressed love of Christ and his word and a life of poverty, were soon devastated: 2,000 killed, 2,000 ‘converted’ to Catholicism, and 8,000 imprisoned .
January 28, 1769: Thomas Middleton, first Anglican bishop of Calcutta, was born in England. While he oversaw a vast diocese covering all the territories of the East India Company, the church made some great advances, including the establishment of Bishop's College in Calcutta(a training college for missionaries in Asia).
February 3, 1788: The first Christian service in Australia was held at Sydney Cove. It was conducted by Rev Richard Johnson, chaplain in the colony, who sailed with his wife Mary with the First Fleet.
January 29, 2003: Rev Sir Alan Edgar Walker OBE, Australian theologian, evangelist, social reformer, broadcaster and activist, and Superintendent of Wesley Mission (formerly Central Methodist Mission), died at an aged care centre on Sydney's North Shore, aged 91.
February 1, 2005: Rev Gordon Powell AM KCSJ*, Presbyterian and Congregational Church minister, broadcaster and writer died. He preached to large congregations at Collins Street Independent Church and Scots Presbyterian Church in Melbourne and St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Sydney. (*KCSJ Knight Commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem).
Your donation will help to maintain Pilgrim People’s sound worship and preaching