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Christian History

Today in Christian History

August 13

August 13, 523: John I is consecrated pope. Shortly after his appointment, John became the first pope to leave Italy—with unfortunate results. He traveled to Constantinople, the center of Eastern Christianity, but on his return was imprisoned by the Arian king of Italy, Theodoric, who suspected John of conspiring with the king's Byzantine antagonists.

August 13, 662: Maximus Confessor, the Eastern leader in the fight against Monothelitism (the heresy that Christ had divine, but no human, will), dies after being tortured for his beliefs.

August 13, 1587: Members of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to Roanoke baptises Manko, the first American Indian convert to Protestantism.

August 13, 1667: Jeremy Taylor, English scholar, theologian, and author of Holy Living and Holy Dying, dies at 54.

August 13, 1727: Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, at age 27, organizes Bohemian Protestant refugees into the Moravian community of "Unitas Fratrum" (united brotherhood) (see issue 1: Nicolaus Zinzendorf).

August 13, 1908: Ira D. Sankey, best known as the music leader in D.L. Moody's evangelistic crusades, dies (see issue 25: Dwight L. Moody).

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July 16, 1519: The Disputation of Leipzig, in which Martin Luther argued that church councils had been wrong and that the church did not have ultimate doctrinal authority, ends (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).

July 16, 1769: Spanish Franciscan friar Father Junipero Serra founds the San Diego de Alcala mission in California, the first permanent Spanish settlement on the west coast of America (see issue 35: Christopher Columbus).

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