Today in the year 654 the first general council of the Anglo-Saxon Church opened. It was convened in Hertford, by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Venerable Bede is the historical source for this council, as he included its text in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The council was attended by five bishops from across Anglo-Saxon England. Bede also records royal attendance, as King Ecgfrith of Northumbria was present and it was a milestone in

Today in 1860 we remember the Death from cholera of the Russian theologian Alexei Khomiakov, while treating peasants during an epidemic. The Cofounder of the Slavophile movement : was a multi-talented man, theologian, philosopher, poet and amateur artist. Even though he had been subject to censorship during his life, but he became a significant influence on Fyodor Dostoevsky. Khomiakov developed the idea of sobornost to underline the need for co-operation between people, at t

Today in 2000 we travel to Hyderabad, India where a quarter of a million Christians clogged the streets, to pay their final respects to the evangelist Bakht Singh who was being buried. Inching along the funeral route, they hold aloft Bibles and Scripture banners, singing and praising God. It was one of the largest funerals in the history of Hyderabad, but not in India, when compared to other historical figures, He was known as Brother Bakht Singh and was one of the most well-

Today in 1701 Thomas Bayes was born into a prominent nonconformist family from Sheffield. He would be known for formulating: Bayes' theorem which describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. He wrote his findings on probability in “Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances” (1763), but it was only published posthumously in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. That work became

Today in 1884 we remember how Dr. Horace Newton Allen arrived in Chemulpo, Korea, praying for an opportunity to evangelize Korea, where the introduction of Christianity was illegal. A rebellion in Seoul led to the prince, a nephew of the king, suffering seven sword thrusts. Refusing to flee with other westerners, Allen tended the prince, who recovered. Recognizing that western medicine is an outgrowth of Christianity, the grateful king removes restrictions on Christianity. Th

Today in 1630 the Welsh-born poet, George Herbert was ordained a priest in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as the rector of the rural parish of Fugglestone St Peter, just outside Salisbury. He had been a student at Trinity College, Cambridge and moved smoothly through the typical stages of academic success: earning a BA and then an MA; obtaining a Minor fellowship then a Major fellowship & increasing responsibility as a tutor and lecturer; until he was ma

Today we remember the death in 1905 of the Scottish clergyman George MacDonald who wrote novels to support himself. He is best remembered for his allegorical fairy stories, which have continued to delight both children and adults. His influence and legacy is wide ranging – a mentor of Lewis Carroll and prominent authors including J. M. Barrie, Mark Twain, G.K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman and J. R. R. Tolkien have cited him as a major influence on them. C. S. Lewis (

Today we remember the death of the Swiss doctor and mystic Adrienne von Speyr. Born and raised during the early twentieth century in a respected upper-class family in Protestant Switzerland, in spite of the prognosis of terminal tuberculosis as a teen she became one of the first female medical doctors in the country and she had a thriving practice, where she saw between sixty and eighty patients a day and cared for the poor free of charge.to attain her chosen career as a phy

Today in 1440, Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, was taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes. He had kidnapped a cleric during a dispute and the investigation that followed uncovered evidence of multiple murders. When the Bishop released his findings he obtained the prosecutorial cooperation of Rais' former protector, John VI, Duke of Brittany. Gilles de Rais was a knight and lord from Brittany, a leader in the

Today in 1530 a supposed 'miraculous' portrait of Saint Dominic appeared in Calabria, in the South of Italy. The image has garnered intense local devotion wi