March 7
At the beginning of the third century, the Roman
emperor Septimus Severus forbade conversions to
Christianity. Among those disobeying that edict were
Perpetua, a young noblewoman, and her maidservant Felicitas.
Both were jailed at Carthage in North Africa along with
three fellow Christians. During their imprisonment, Perpetua
and Felicitas witnessed to their faith with such conviction
that the officer in charge became a follower of Jesus. After
making arrangements for the well-being of their children,
Perpetua and Felicitas were executed on 7 March 203.
Tradition holds that Perpetua showed mercy to her captors by
falling on a sword because they could not bear to put her to
death. The story of this martyrdom has been told ever since
as an encouragement to persecuted Christians. [From "Commemorations
Biographies," Lutheran Service Book, LCMS
Commission on Worship]
1274 Thomas
Aquinas (b. ca. 1225), greatest philosopher and
theologian of the Medieval church, died.
1530
Pope Clement VII
(1478–1534) rejected
Henry
VIII’s (1491–1547)
request to divorce Catherine of Aragon.
1638 Colonial churchwoman Anne
Hutchinson (1591–1643) and nineteen other exiles from Massachusetts
Bay Colony settled in Rhode Island at the site of modern
Portsmouth.
1742 Birgitte
Katerine Boye, Danish hymnist, was born in Gentofte,
Denmark (d. 17 October 1824).
1782 Ohio Territory militiamen began a
two-day massacre of the Moravian-founded Indian settlement
of
Gnadenhutten
(modern New Philadelphia, Ohio).
1783 Gottfried
Wilhelm Fink, composer, was born at Sulza, Thuringia (d.
27 August 1846, Halle).
1804 The British
and Foreign Bible Society was organized.
1823 William
Ward, English Baptist missionary to India and a printer,
died (b. 20 October 1769, Derby, England).
1825
Alfred
Edersheim, English biblical scholar, was born in Vienna,
Austria (d. 16 March 1889).
1833 Theodor
Christlieb, theologian, was born at Birkenfeld,
Wuerttemberg (d. 15 August 1889, Bonn). [German
Wikipedia article]
1835 Thomas
Rawson Taylor, hymnist, died at Airedale, England (b.
9 May 1807, Ossett, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, England).
1836 James
Mills Thoburn, missionary to India, was born in Saint
Clairsville, Ohio (d. 28 November 1922).
1863 Edward
Osler, hymnist, died (b. 31 January 1798, Falmouth, Cornwall,
England).
1864 Charles
Armand Miller, Lutheran pastor in the eastern United
States, was born in Sheperdstown, West Virginia (d. 10
September 1917).
1867 Peter
Cameron Scott, American pioneer missionary and founder
of the African Inland Mission, was born (d. 8 December 1896).
1875 John
William Carl Janzow, president of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Australia, was born in Lewiston,
Minnesota (d. 20 July 1949).
1877 Christian
Keysser, Lutheran missionary to New Guinea, was born in
Geroldsgruen, Bavaria, Germany (d. 14 December 1961).
1881 Marmaduke
Nathaniel Carter, an African American LCMS pastor in
Chicago, was born in Hanover Court, Virginia (d. 14 October
1961).
1887 Paul
Louis Dannenfeldt, chairman of the Missouri Synod's
Armed Forces Commission, was born in Bennett, Nebraska (d.
14 August 1971).
1899 Wilhelm
Heinrich Berkemeier, Lutheran missionary to immigrants,
died (b. 18 October 1820).
1909 James
William Richard, Reformation historian, died (b. 14
February 1843 near Winchester, Virginia).
1964 At a Roman parish church, Pope Paul
VI (1897–1978) celebrated mass in Italian instead of Latin,
implementing one of the most significant changes of the
Second Vatican Council-worship in the vernacular.