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Christian History

Today in Christian History

June 8

June 8, 793 (traditional date): Vikings attack the monastery at Lindisfarne, Scotland. The date is often considered the first event of the "Viking Age" (see issue 63: Conversion of the Vikings).

June 8, 1536: Following Henry VIII's Declaration of Supremacy, English clergy draw up the Ten Articles of Religion, the first articles of the Anglican Church since its break from Roman Catholicism (see issue 48: Thomas Cranmer).

June 8, 1794: French revolutionaries replace Christianity with a deistic religion honoring a trinity of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." They renamed churches "Temples of Reason," and a new calendar announced a 10-Day week and holidays commemorating events of the revolution. The "reign of terror" followed, with some 1,400 people losing their heads. Napolean recognized the church again in 1804, then proceeded to imprison Pope Pius VII.

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May 7, 1274: The Second Council of Lyons convenes with the goal of reunifying the Roman and Greek churches. Orthodox delegates agreed to recognize the papal claims and recite the Creed with the filioque clause, but the union was fiercely rejected by the majority of Orthodox clergy and laity fiercely rejected the union (see issue 54: Eastern Orthodoxy)

May 7, 1605: Russian prelate Nikon, patriarch of Moscow and the head of the Russian church, is born in Valdemanovo. When he tried to reform the church ...

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