March 25
The Annunciation of Our Lord
752
Pope-elect Stephen died before taking office.
1347
Catherine of Siena, Italian saint, was born (d. 29 April
1380).
1400
Florens
Radewyns, leader of the Brethren of the Common Life, died
(b. ca. 1350).
1409 The Council
of Pisa was assembled for the primary purpose of
deposing two rival popes, Benedict XII (1394–1417) and
Gregory XII (1406–1415). The return of the papacy to Rome
from Avignon, France (1309–1377), created the Great Schism
(1378–1417), which saw as many as three rival popes, each
claiming legitimate papal powers. The council elected
Alexander V on 26 June.
1522 Upon his recovery from battle
wounds,
Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) visited the Benedictine monastery of
Montserrat, where he hung his military accouterments before
the image of the Virgin of Montserrat. Then he led a period
of asceticism to found later the
Society of Jesus.
1528 Jakob
Andreae, Formula of Concord co-author, was born (d.
7 January 1590). [German
Wikipedia article]
1549
Veit
Dietrich, reformer, died (b. 8 December 1506). [German
Wikipedia article]
1593
Jean de Brébeuf, French Jesuit missionary to Canada, was
born (d. 16 March 1649).
1609
Olaus Martini, Swedish archbishop of Uppsala, died (b.
1557)
1655
Puritans
took control of
Maryland at the Battle of the Severn.
1740 Construction began on the Bethesda
Orphanage in Savannah, Georgia, the oldest existing
orphanage in America. It was built and paid for from
contributions raised by English revivalist George
Whitefield (1714–1770) through his public preaching both in England
and America.
1783 Andrew
Grassman, traveling missionary to Germany, Sweden,
Lapland and Greenland, died (b. 23 February 1704).
1783 Luther
Rice, missionary to India, was born in Northborough,
Massachusetts (d. 25 September 1836).
1797 Social reformer John
Winebrenner, founder of the Church of God (now known as
the Churches of God, General Conference), was born in
Maryland (d. 12 September 1860).
1807 The
Slave Trade Act became law, abolishing the
slave trade in the British Empire.
1811
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
was expelled from the University of Oxford for his
publication of the pamphlet
The Necessity of Atheism.
1822 Albrecht
Ritschl, a leading German Protestant theologian of the
last half of the nineteenth century, was born in Berlin (d.
20 March 1889).
1823
Godfrey
Thring, Anglican clergyman and hymnist, was born at
Alford, Somerset (d. 13 September 1903).
1843
Robert
Murray M'Cheyne (b. 21 May 1813), Church of Scotland minister,
died.
1846 Martin
Joseph Schmidt, president of Concordia College (Fort
Wayne, Indiana), was born in Altenburg, Perry County,
Missouri (d. 1 May 1931).
1859 Jens
Christian Roseland, Augustana Synod leader, was born in
Sandnes, Jaederen, Norway (d. 17 December 1930).
1863 Elling
Hove, a professor at Luther College (Decorah, Iowa) and
Luther Seminary (Saint Paul, Minnesota), was born at
Northwood, Iowa (d. 17 December 1927).
1876 The Home Mission Board of the
Northern Presbyterian Church sent its first missionaries to
the American Indians.
1877 John
H. Stockton (b. 19 April 1813), American Methodist pastor and
hymn writer, died.
1886
Athenagoras I, Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, was
born (d. 7 July 1972).
1890 The Finnish
Evangelical Lutheran Church (Suomi Synod) was organized
at Calumet, Michigan.
1890
William
Ashley "Billy" Sunday (1862–1935), famed left fielder for the
Chicago White Sox, gave up his successful career in baseball
following his conversion to Christ. He soon became one of
the most popular evangelists of his day.
1906
Dawson
E. Trotman, founder of the Navigators, was born in
Bisbee, Arizona (d. 16 June 1956).
1917 The
Georgian Orthodox Church restored its
autocephaly abolished by
Imperial Russia in 1811.
1927 Heinrich
Böhmer, Luther historian, died
(b. 1869).
1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli became
Pope
Pius XII (1876–1958).
1991
Marcel Lefebvre, French Catholic prelate who took the
lead in opposing changes within the Roman Catholid Church
associated with the
Second Vatican Council, died (b. 29 November 1905).