November 18

1095 Pope Urban II opened the Council of Clermont to reform the church and to plan the first crusade.

1302 Pope Boniface VIII (ca. 1235–1303) published the bull Unam sanctam against Philip IV (the Fair) of France, condemning Philip’s political interference with the affairs of the church.

1575 Johannes Aurifaber, co-editor of the Jena edition of Martin Luther’s works, died (b. ca. 1519). [German Wikipedia article]

1651 Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676), Lutheran hymn writer, was ordained.

1784 American-born Anglican priest Samuel Seabury (1729–1796) was ordained a bishop in Scotland.

1786 Carl Maria von Weber, famed German composer, was born (d. 5 June 1826).

1800 John Nelson Darby, founder and leader of a branch of the Plymouth Brethren, was born (d. 29 April 1882).

1849 Russell K. Carter, American Methodist clergyman and hymnist, was born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 23 August 1928, Catonsville, Maryland).

1866 English hymn writer Katherine Hankey (1834–1911) penned the verse that is sung as the hymn “I Love to Tell the Story.”

1874 Arthur Tozer Russell, hymn translator, died at Rectory of Southwick, near Brighton, England (b. 20 March 1806, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England).

1874 Delegates from seventeen states met (through 20 November) in Cleveland, Ohio, to form the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

1893 Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) published the encyclical Providentissimus Deus, which strongly encouraged Roman Catholic educators to teach sound courses in biblical introduction and interpretation.

1894 Concordia Teachers College (Seward, Nebraska) was dedicated.

1899 August Reinke, pioneer of deaf ministry, died (b. 29 September 1841).

1925 The Minneapolis Theses were adopted by the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America and by the Ohio, Iowa and Buffalo Synods. The theses formed the doctrinal basis of the American Lutheran Church, organized in 1930, and of The American Lutheran Conference.

1931 Ludwig E. Fuerbringer (1864–1947) became president of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis).

1965 A decree on the Apostolate of the Laity was issued by the Second Vatican Council.

1966 This was the last required meatless Friday for American Roman Catholics. In February Pope Paul VI (1897–1978) had made an apostolic decree that prayer or charitable works might be substituted as penance instead of fasting and abstinence.

1978 In Jonestown, Guyana, 913 members of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple cult committed suicide by poisoning themselves and their families.