February 4

362 Roman Emperor Julian (331–363) promulgated an edict that recognized equal rights to all the religions in the Roman Empire.

856 Rabanus Maurus, Frankish theologian, scholar, teacher and hymnist, died at Winkel on the Rhine (b. ca. 780).

1442 The bull Cantate Domino expressing agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the Coptic Church at the Council of Florence was issued by Pope Eugene IV (1383–1447).

1555 John Rogers (b. ca. 1505), the first Protestant martyr under Queen Mary I of England (1516–1558), was burned at the stake for heresy.

1576 Henry of Navarre (1553–1610) converted to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France.

1790 John Bachman, Lutheran pastor at Charleston, South Carolina, and collaborator with John James Audubon, was born at Rhinebeck, New York (d. 24 February 1874).

1794 Benjamin Henkel, early American Lutheran pastor, died (b. ca. 1765). He was the son of Jacob Henkel and the brother of Paul Henkel.

1810 The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which had been in existence since 10 January 1810, formed an independent presbytery headed by three pastors.

1826 Gottlob Frederick Krotel, president of the General Council, was born in Ilsfeld, Wuerttemberg (d. 17 May 1907).

1856 Robert Dick Wilson, American Presbyterian philologist, was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania (d. 11 October 1930).

1859 The biblical manuscript known as the Codex Sinaiticus was discovered by Konstantin von Tischendorf in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.

1867 John Alfred Morehead, professor and head of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (Mount Pleasant, South Carolina) and president of Roanoke College, was born in Pulaski County, Virginia (d. 1 June 1936).

1873 George Bennard, American-Methodist evangelist, was born in Youngstown, Ohio (d. 10 October 1958 in Michigan).

1874 English poet and devotional writer Frances Ridley Havergal (1836–1879), penned the lines to the hymn “Take My Life, and Let It Be.”

1883 George K. A. Bell, Anglican clergyman and first chairman of the Central Committee when the World Council of Churches was formed in 1948 in Amsterdam, was born at Hayling Island, England (d. 1958).

1888 Paul Althaus, Lutheran biblical scholar, was born at Obershagen, Germany (d. 18 May 1966, Erlangen).

1891 Tuve Nilsson Hasselquist, president and leader of the Augustana Synod, died (b. 2 March 1816, Osby [Ousby, or Hasslarod], Sweden).

1901 Edward John Hopkins, composer, died (b. 30 June 1818, Westminster, London, England).

1906 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran theologian who led the opposition to Nazification of the German Protestant Church, was born in Breslau, Germany (d. 9 April 1945).

1917 A. T. Kramer became the first Missouri Synod pastor in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1933 Archibald H. Sayce, English Assyriologist, died (b. 25 September 1846, Shirehampton, near Bristol, Gloucestershire, England).

1940 The first foreign Lutheran Hour broadcast took place.

1944 Cleland B. McAfee (b. 25 September 1866), American Presbyterian clergyman and theologian, died.

1990 Frederick A. Schole, former president of The Lutheran Church—Canada (LCC), died in Lamonte, Alberta. Schole headed the LCC from 1961 to 1967, when the now autonomous church body was a federation of LCMS districts. A 1932 graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois), Schole also held various offices in the Alberta-British Columbia District.