The Cycle Continues

Among Protestants the word 'reformer' will call to mind one specific group of individuals operating either in close or distant orbit around Martin Luther. But the fact is, Luther was not the first to try to reform the Catholic church. Time and time again the church became corrupt over the centuries and each time God raised up individuals to address the abuses. Two such men were Robert of Molesne and Stephen Harding.

By the end of the church's first millennium monastic orders had become one of the driving forces in church life, and to be fair, the system worked well, most of the time. Contrary to popular belief the monasteries were not places where the religious holed-up and ignored the world. From within the monastery walls they reached out to meet the needs of the surrounding community. They provided education, medical services, emergency relief in times of flood and famine; they served as arbiters negotiating disputes and generally served the needs of the people in the name of Christian charity. The walls of the monastery were intended to protect the religious not from the common man, but from the all too common temptations that ruled the world at large.

There is, of course, one drawback to this plan. The religious communities, like the world around them, were made up of people. And people are easily led astray, even by the best of intentions. The problem was that as the monastic community did what they did so well, people began to reward them with various gifts, money being high on the list. Eventually civil authorities often just let them run things. As more and more responsibility was entrusted to them the religious orders become more influential in governing circles. With influence comes power and power, as they say, corrupts. The orders became wealthy and embroiled in the world's value system.

Robert and Stephen looked at the way things were and determined that the older orders were no longer following the example of Christ. Had not Jesus lived a life of poverty? Had not his disciples left all to follow him? Furthermore, Jesus had called the rich ruler to leave all to follow him and had taught that it was hard for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven.

After unsuccessful attempts to turn the hearts of the corrupt, the two men, along with some like minded fellows, sought to escape the soul-sapping temptations of wealth and power, by organizing a monastery of their own at Citeaux in Burgundy. Their new monastic order, the Cistercians or "white monks" dedicated themselves to silence, austerity and manual work rather than scholarship. Intent on resisting the lure of the world, they refused to accept tithes, gifts, or lay patrons, seeking a plain, simple lifestyle without treasures or personal possessions. Unlike other orders where the bulk of the work was done by hired lay-people, they kept no servants, believing that work itself was a form of prayer. When not engaging in tasks such as farming, cooking, weaving and carpentry, their day was devoted to meditation, reading, and divine service. They allowed themselves seven hours of sleep in winter and six in summer. In summer they ate once a day; in winter, twice.

The order kept pretty much to themselves, as was intended, until, fourteen years after their founding one Bernard of Clairvaux would arrive at Citeaux (see woodcut at right). It was Bernard that realized the potential of what Robert and Stephen had started. He took their simple rules for monastic life and started another Cistercian monastery in his hometown. In the years to follow he would found an additional 65 monasteries throughout Europe laying the foundation for what would eventually prove to be one of the great revolutions in European civilization.

By the year 1300 there would be over 600 Cistercian monasteries and nunneries in existence. Their work ethic and their devotion to improving the lives of the people they served would lead to improved cattle breeds and the developments of several new methods of agriculture, which they eagerly taught to the farmers. The result was the transformation of the wastelands of Europe into highly productive farmland.

The efforts of the Cistercians left Europe far better off than they had found it. Other orders began to follow their example and the life of the common man gradually improved. They still faced hard times, by our standards, but for the 14th century farming life had never been better.

Life was also good for the Cistercians. Their influence grew with their contributions to society and that made them a very wealthy and powerful order. The administration of the order and its activities across the continent soon occupied more and more of the monks time. They withdrew from manual labour, leaving it to the hired lay-brothers that became associated with their monasteries. It was not long before allegations of greed and corruption were made, as they themselves had accused the older orders that had motivated their founding. The cycle continued, even as it does today.

The opening of the first Cistercians monastery at Citeaux by Robert of Molesne and Stephen Harding happened on March 21, 1098 - 910 years ago this week.

Resources:
1. Gildas, F. M. "Cistercians." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
2. Various encyclopedia articles, histories, histories of Christianity and internet articles.

Other Events that Happened this week:

March 15, 1517: Pope Leo X issues the infamous indulgence that would ultimately lead to the Reformation and the Protestant movement. Having drained the papal treasury indulging his love of lavious living and entertainment, Leo needed to raise funds to rebuild St. Peter's basilica. In exchange for donations he offered "to absolve you ...from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they be...and remit to you all punishment which you deserve in purgatory on their account and I restore you...to the innocence and purity which you possessed at baptism; so that when you die the gates of punishment shall be shut... and if you shall not die at present, this grace shall remain in full force when you are at the point of death."

March 16, 1649 : Jesuit missionaries John of Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant are martyred in Quebec, Canada. When a tribal war broke out between the Iroquois and the Hurons they had been instructing in the Christian faith, the two men refused to leave their charges despite the warnings of the Huron chief. When the Hurons were over whelmed and slaughtered by the Iroquois the Jesuits were tortured to death over a two day period.

March 17, 1780: Thomas Chalmers, pastor and reformer is born. In 1843, angered by the restrictions and controls imposed on the Scottish clergy by the state, Chalmers led a third of the Scottish clergy and a half of the laity out of the church of Scotland and into the Free Church of Scotland (FCS), which he helped to found.

March 18, 1861: London's Metropolitan Tabernacle, the sanctuary of English Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, opens. Spurgeon had insisted that the enormous building employ Greek architecture because the New Testament was written in Greek—a decision that influenced church architecture throughout the world.

March 19, 1229: After negotiating a treaty with Muslims for Christian access to Jerusalem, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (coerced into participating in the sixth crusade by the pope) enters the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and crowns himself king. Unfortunately his peace treaty was denounced by members of both faiths, and Frederick was later excommunicated for making peace instead of war. Go figure!

March 20, 1852: Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of famous Congregational minister Lyman Beecher, publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin (which had been serialized in an antislavery newspaper). The book sold one million copies and was so influential in arousing antislavery sentiment that Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said upon meeting Stowe in 1863: "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!"

More than "Mere Learned Labour"

Did you know that the Bible used to contain an Epistle to the Laodiceans? Take a look at Colossians 4:16. "After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea." So.. why doesn't it appear in our canon of scripture? Well, it used to.

Up until the 15th century the epistle appeared in a number of manuscripts (hand written documents) including the oldest known copy, which is in Latin, as part of the Fulda MS created for Victor of Capua in 546. And therein lies the problem. Most scholars are of the opinion that unless we can find an older copy written in the original Greek, there is reason to doubt it's authenticity. You can read an annotated version of the epistle here.

This has been one of many standards used to authenticate manuscripts over the centuries. It is one of the reasons many epistles were not included in scripture. The main reason the epistle appeared in so many early Bibles, including all 18 German Bibles that preceded Martin Luther's, was because of the reference to it in Colossians, even though it failed one of the standards.

But in the early 15th century another longer epistle was discovered that also claimed to be from the Apostle Paul. It is a highly questionable version, only popular with New Age style cult groups and a few Kabbalah types but it was enough to add to the controversy over the other epistle. (If you care to you can read it here.) So in 1443, after the Council in Florence, the See of Rome issued, for the first time, a categorical opinion of the canon of scripture, listing 27 New Testament books, including 14 Pauline epistles ending with the book of Hebrews. The Epistle to the Laodiceans had been left out, and has been ever since.

This is the reason why the search for early Christian manuscripts continues even today. Every piece of evidence adds to our knowledge of the scriptures and aids in the process of clarifying the meaning of some of the more cryptic passages of scripture. I'd like to tell you the story of the discovery of one such document. It would turn out to be one of the most important finds in the history of how we got our Bible.

Constantin Tischendorf, a Bible scholar of the mid 19th century, was offended by scholars who denied the inspiration of the Bible. He was adamant in his belief that "the history of the early Church, as well as that of the sacred text, contains abundant arguments in reply to those who deny the credibility of the Gospel witness."

And so he began what would become his life's work, the search for old manuscripts so he could produce an edition of the Bible as close to the original text as possible. Operating on a shoestring budget, he set out in early 1844 and searched throughout Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, and the Middle East. Many in his circle failed to understand what drove the young man to undertake such a quest. He once wrote, "To some, all this may seem mere learned labor: but permit me to add that the science touches on life in two important respects; to mention only two--to clear up in this way the history of the sacred text, and to recover if possible the genuine apostolic text which is the foundation of our faith--these cannot be matters of small importance. The whole of Christendom is, in fact, deeply interested in these results."

That May found Constantin at the monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. While there he saw a large basket filled with tattered parchments, which, it appeared were being used as fire starters, or at least being burned as rubbish. Constantin poked through the basket and was astounded by what he found there - 129 pages of the Old Testament in Greek! This would prove to be the oldest Biblical manuscript he had ever discovered -- dating from the 4th century!

Now it should be mentioned that many scholars find it hard to believe that a monastery preserving over 3,000 manuscripts, many for over a thousand years, would be so careless as to burn such important documents, and so called into question Tischendorf's account. However, it should also be noted that this same monastery allowed over 1100 other manuscripts to lie buried for 200 years under a collapsed building. Not a great testimony to the monks' concern or care of the treasures entrusted to them!

However the actual discovery was made, Constantin was allowed to keep 43 of the leaves which he took with him for others to examine. When he returned in 1853 it would seem that his previous visit had caused the monks to re-examine their manuscript protocols - they were no longer as forthcoming. He returned again in 1859 to much the same reception, but on the last day of his visit, a sympathetic steward showed him a rather bulky volume which contained not only the rest of the 129 leaves from his original visit, but a complete New Testament, including the Epistle of Barnabas and a part of what is called "the Pastor of Hermas."

This time Constantin managed to conceal the excitement that filled his heart and asked, in on off-handed manner, for permission to examine the manuscript in his sleeping quarters. There he spent much of the night copying out the Epistle of Barnabas. It was the only complete copy ever discovered. A few days later he managed to convince the monks to let him take the volume to Cairo where he and his associates managed to copy an astounding 110,000 lines of text in just a few days.

The manuscript never did make it back to the monastery at Sinai. The monks, in good faith, agreed to let the codex (denotes a book of parchment pages as opposed to a scroll) be taken to Russia to be replicated. They even forwarded a few additional pages that were discovered at a later date, never suspecting that Tischendorf would renege on his promise to return it and instead present it to the Tsar as a gift. When the monastery asked for it back, the Russians delayed and were evasive until the monks finally agreed to sell them the ancient text.

When Russia fell to the Communists in 1917 they had little interest in Biblical manuscripts. They realized though that others would pay good money for what had become known as the Codex Sinaiticus, so they sold it to the British Museum for £100,000.

Constantin Tischendorf, whose discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, and other old manuscripts invaluable for checking the accuracy of current translations was born in Langenfeld, in what is now Germany, on January 18th, 1815 - 193 years ago this week.


Resources:
1. Codex Sinaiticus, British Library Website, Gallery of Asian and African Manuscripts
2. Christian History Institute. Glimpses # 55 "Treasure in a Trash Pile."
3. "Codex Sinaiticus." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus
4. Various Internet articles.

Other Events This Week in Church History:

January 14, 1892: Lutheran pastor and political activist Martin Niemoller, who was imprisoned by Hitler for his leadership role in the Confessing Church, is born.

January 15, 1697: Massachusetts citizens observe a day of fasting and repentance for the Salem witch trials of 1692, in which 19 suspected witches were hanged and more than 150 imprisoned. The day was declared "That so all of God's people may offer up fervent supplications unto him, that all iniquity may be put away, which hath stirred God's holy jealousy against this land; that he would show us what we know not, and help us, wherein we have done amiss, to do so no more."

January 16, 1604: Puritan John Rainolds suggests " . . . that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek." England's King James I granted his approval the following day, leading to the 1611 publication of the Authorized (King James) version of the Bible.


January 17, 356 (traditional date): Antony of Egypt, regarded as the founder of Christian monasticism, dies at age 105. Committed to a life of solitude and absolute poverty, he took two companions with him into the desert when he knew his death was near. They were ordered to bury him without a marker so that his body would never become an object of reverence.

January 19, 1563: The Heidelberg Catechism, soon accepted by nearly all European Reformed churches, is first published in Germany. This catechism, consisting of 129 questions and their answers, also formed the basis for many other catechisms including the Westminister Larger catechism.

January 20, 1918: Following the Bolshevik Revolution, all church property in Russia is confiscated and all religious instruction in schools abolished.

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Shoeless John de Yepes

Recently, my pastor was preaching about the long dry periods we sometimes experience in our spiritual lives. He, of course, mentioned the 'dark night of the soul", a common reference for this subject and referred to by a few of the more famous in the Christian world who have experienced it, such as Mother Theresa. As he spoke (you can hear what he had to say here ) I could not help but think about the life of John de Yepes, the Christian mystic and poet who coined the phrase. Let me tell you a little about him.

The de Yepes family was not a wealthy Spanish family. They might have been except that John's father Gonzalo had chosen to marry the common woman he loved, Catalina, instead of someone his noble father might have chosen for him. As a result he was disinherited and the young couple found themselves struggling to survive as silk weavers. Gonzalo passed away soon after John was born in 1542, leaving Catalina to struggle even harder to raise her boys. In an effort to find work she moved to Medina de Campo.

Though John studied well at the "poor school" he attended, when he was apprenticed out to a local artisan, it seemed he was incapable of learning anything. Exasperated, his master loaned him out to a Jesuit school where John divided his time between his studies and serving in the hospital for the impoverished. Over the next seven years John felt the call of God grow ever stronger upon him, but not just any call. John was convinced that he was to become a friar in the strictest traditions of the old desert fathers. John felt that 'modern' orders had grown soft allowing themselves far too many of life's pleasures - like shoes.

No... I'm not kidding! John joined the Carmelite order in 1563 taking the name John of St. Mathias. The order had historically been very strict, taking their example from the prophet Elijah. John felt that by embracing poverty and going without food, he would grow closer to God. But he soon decided the Carmelites were not strict enough and made the decision to transfer his allegiance to the Carthusians. Then he met Teresa of Avila.

Like John himself, Teresa felt the order had grown far too soft; however, instead of leaving she was urging Carmelites to return to the original strict poverty of their order. John embraced Teresa's plan, and along with two other men, he moved into a farmhouse which was in such bad shape that even Teresa did not think anyone could live in it. He renamed himself John of the Cross and became the spiritual leader of the new movement.

As a symbol of the strictness of their devotion they adopted the "discalced" discipline (from the Latin for without shoes). This discipline requires it's followers to go unshod, that is barefoot, as a testament to their devotion. The practice was introduced by Francis of Assisi when shoes were considered a luxury item. The followers of the discipline, devoted to a life of poverty either eschewed shoes entirely or limited themselves to simple sandals when conditions warranted - such as in winter.

Sometime later, Teresa invited John to come to Avila and serve as director and confessor to the convent of the Incarnation, of which she had been appointed prioress. During the five years he remained there the reform spread rapidly, and soon those in higher authority began to take a great deal of notice.

Because the movement did not have the official sanction of the powers that be, John was ordered to return to the house of his profession, that is the monastery on Medina. He refused to do so, and soon found himself in prison for resisting commands from a superior. In prison, he was scourged. But after nine months, he managed to escape and reappeared as leader of another community at Ubeda. He spent the rest of his life there, passing away on December 14, 1591.

While in prison, John began writing "Dark Night of the Soul", a commentary on a poem he had written.

On a dark night, kindled in love with yearnings--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed, my house being now at rest.
In darkness and secure...
Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
This light guided me more surely than the light of noonday...
Oh, night that guided me, oh, night more lovely than the dawn...

The poem, called "The Ascent of Mount Carmel" (where Elijah met the priests of Baal) was extensive, originally intended to take up four books; but it breaks off part way through the third. In it and his other writings he sets forth the axiom that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God, that it must be purified of the last traces of earthly dross before it is fit to become united with God. In the application of this simple maxim he shows the most uncompromising logic. For this reason St. John is often portrayed as a fairly grim character; but personally I've never thought that to be true. He was indeed austere in the extreme, but from his writings I see in him a man overflowing with charity and kindness, a poet deeply influenced by all that is beautiful in God's creation.

John of the Cross moved into that dilapidated farm house, giving birth to the Discalced Carmelite Order on November 28th, 1568 - 439 years ago this week.


Resources:

1. St John of the cross, Benedict Zimmerman. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII. Published 1910. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08480a.htm >
2. Carmelite Order Official Website: Our Saints - St. John of the Cross <http://www.carmelite.com/saints/john/index.shtml >
3: Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons


Other events that happened this week in Church history:

November 26, 1862: President Abraham Lincoln meets Harriet Beecher Stowe, the abolitionist author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and daughter of prominent minister Lyman Beecher. "So," Lincoln said upon meeting her, "you're the little woman that wrote the book that made this great war!"

November 27, 1095: In an effort to end hostilities between waring factions within the church by giving them a common enemy, Pope Urban II addresses the public to proclaim the First Crusade. The goals were to defend Eastern Christians from Muslim aggression, make pilgrimages to Jerusalem safer, and recapture the Holy Sepulcher. "God wills it! God wills it!" the crowd shouted in response.

November 29, 1847: Missionary physician Marcus Whitman, his wife, and 12 others are killed by Cayuse Indians in Washington's Walla Walla valley. Whitman had recently returned from a 3,000-mile journey to convince the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions not to close down one of his three mission stations. He was successful, and returned with a fresh group of immigrants—and the measles virus. Many Cayuse died of the disease, some of them because Whitman gave them vaccinations. Two years after the massacre, five Cayuse elders voluntarily gave themselves up, in order to end further retribution against their tribe. Their leader, Tiloukaikt, said on the gallows, "Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people? So we die to save our people."

November 30, 1554: Recently crowned Queen of England, Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, restores Roman Catholicism to the country. Nearly 300 Protestants would be burned at the stake by "Bloody Mary," including Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley. Nearly 400 more died by imprisonment and starvation.

December 1, 1170: Banished earlier by king Henry II because he sided with the church against the crown, archbishop of Canterbury Thomas a Becket returns, electrifying all of England. Henry orders his former friend's execution, and Becket is slain by four knights while at vespers December 29. (T.S. Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral is a fascinating exploration of the event.)

December 2, 1980: Three American nuns and a lay churchwoman are killed by death squads in El Salvador. Some 70,000 Salvadorans are estimated to have died because of terrorists or civil war during the 1980s, including many Catholic clergy.

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Kings Were His Pall Bearers

The legend of Robin Hood shows King Richard the Lion-heart and his brother John struggling over who should rule England. But while the story of the Thief of Sherwood is indeed fiction, the reality is there was a bit of a thorn in the side of these two members of the 12th century royal family. His name was Hugh of Lincoln.

Born to a knightly family in the Burgundy region Hugh Avalon's life changed dramatically due to his mother's death when he was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old (accounts vary). His mother was the shining light of his Father's existence. When she died he was so overcome with grief he abandoned his castle and took up life in a nearby monastery, taking young Hugh with him. When asked why, he responded, "I will have him taught to carry on warfare for God before he learns to live for the world."

After his father's death, he joined a The Carthusian Order, a community of hermits in the Chartreuse Mountains, living in a cave in strict silence on one loaf of bread a week and wearing a hair shirt. Like many hermits he became more enamored of the wildlife that occupied the forests around his cave than his fellow human beings. After ten years of strict devotion he was promoted to the office of procurator of the Great Chartreuse, head monastrey of the order, a post second only to that of the prior of the house (the order has no abbeys, hence no abbots). He likely would have been made prior when the time came, but God had other plans for Hugh.

Across the channel in England, harsh words against Thomas Becket by King Henry II inspired four of his knights to assassinate the Archbishop. Henry, appalled at his own actions, swore to build three abbeys as penance. In true kingly style he confiscated peasant land to build one of the abbeys at Witham, near Somerset. Those set in charge of the abbey however, had difficulty making it work. Since that particular abbey was the first Carthusian abbey, Henry turned to Chartreuse for help. The prior knew just the man to go to England and resolve the situation - Hugh of Avalon.

At first Hugh resisted, but his devotion to the order wouldn't let him do so for long. At his prior's insistence, he left for England. He was astonished to discover that Witham had not been paid for. Holding Christ's example before the king he made it plain that he would have nothing to do with the site until the peasants who had owned the land were fully compensated. Henry, knowing the monk's reputation for unassailable integrity, paid "to the last penny."

Even though Hugh became a trusted advisor to the king, he never lost his humility. In the royal courts he dressed as simply as he had as a monk. He won the love of the poor, of children, and of lepers. Always a friend to the oppressed, he often tended to lepers and even risked his own life to prevent the slaying of a group of Jews during a riot. Never afraid of hard work, no task was beneath him. Lincoln cathedral had been damaged in an earthquake the year before Hugh became bishop. Hugh founded the present building, and worked on it with his own hands.

Hugh lived up to the expectations of his superiors. During the ten years he was prior at Witham numerous difficulties vanished almost as soon as they appeared. In 1186, again with much resistance, he was made Bishop of Lincoln. Any hope of someday retiring to the religious calm of his beloved Carthusian cell disappeared with this appointment. True to his character, he brought all his determination and untiring energy to the duties of his new station. He travelled endlessly: holding synods and visitations, confirming children, consecrating churches and burying the dead. His sense of justice was legendary and three popes, as well as the King, made him judge over some of the most important legal cases of the time. He even excommunicated the king's own forester who had oppressed the poor. At first Henry was angry, but in the end saw justice and had the man flogged.

Hugh also wrestled with Richard Lionheart, refusing to raise money for his wars. Unable to persuade the determined monk, Richard said, "If all bishops were like my lord of Lincoln, not a prince among us could raise his head against them." Hugh also took Richard's brother, King John to task on a number of occasions, but John simply ignored him.

It should be mentioned that Hugh never lost his love of or affinity for nature. On the day of his installation at Lincoln, a swan took to following Hugh around the grounds, it soon became a beloved pet and even today when you see icons or paintings of St. Hugh, he will be accompanied by the swan. It is even said that after his death, in the year following that of King Richard, the bird pined for him the way swans are known to pine for a lost mate.

And the swan wasn't the only one. Though King John rarely followed Hugh's advice it did not mean John had no respect for the Bishop of Lincoln. Both remain royal brothers, King John of England and King William of Scotland, considered it an honor to be numbered among those carrying his coffin. Thus Hugh of Lincoln's pall bearers included two kings, and three archbishops, nine other bishops were also in attendance. St. Hugh was canonized by the Pope Honorius Ill, in 1220; and in 1280 his body was translated, with great ceremony, into the newly-built eastern part of the Lincoln Cathedral - the so-called "Angel Choir."

St. Hugh of Lincoln's funeral took place on November 16, 1200 - 807 years ago this week.

Resources:

1. Britannia Biographies: St. Hugh of Lincoln. <http://www.britannia.com/bios/bishops/havalon.html >
2. The Catholic Encyclopedia, St. hugh of Lincoln, Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07519c.htm >
3. Photo Credit: The Grand Chartreuse: Official website of the Carthusian Order <http://www.chartreux.org/maisons/GC/photos.php?langue=en>


Other events this week in Church history:

November 12, 1660: John Bunyan is arrested for unlicensed preaching and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, he penned Pilgrim's Progess and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the greatest Puritan spiritual autobiography.

November 13, 1618: The Dutch Reformed Church convenes the Synod of Dort to "discuss" the Arminian controversy. Of course, the synod's condemnation of Arminianism was a forgone conclusion—Arminians weren't even invited for another month. By April, 200 Arminian ministers (known as Remonstrants) were deposed by the Calvinist Synod, 15 were arrested, and one was beheaded for high treason.

November 14, 1976: The Plains (Ga.) Baptist Church, where then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter was a member, votes to permit blacks to attend.

November 15, 1885: Mwanga, ruler of Buganda (now part of Uganda), beheads recent Anglican convert and royal family member Joseph Mukasa. Mukasa opposed the massacring of Anglican missionary bishop James Hannington and his colleagues in October. The bloodbath continued through January 1887 as the ruler killed Mukasa's Christian pages and other Anglican and Catholic leaders. Collectively, the martyrs of Uganda were canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964.

November 17, 270 (traditional date): Gregory Thaumaturgus ("The Wonder Worker"), a well-loved bishop in Pontus and the author of the first Christian biography (on Origen) dies. A legend, from a generation later, about the Virgin Mary visiting him is the first account of an apparition of Mary.

November 18, 1874: The Women's Christian Temperance Union is founded in Cleveland. Claiming the power of the Holy Spirit, Protestant members would march into saloons and demand they be closed. It was the largest temperance organization and the largest women's organization in the U.S. before 1900.

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