January 6
The Epiphany of Our Lord
1412 Joan of Arc,
French heroine, was born in Domremy (traditional date; d. 30 May 1431).
1493
Olavus (Olaus) Petri, Swedish reformer, was born at
Örebro, Sweden (d. 1552).
1494 The first Roman Catholic mass
in North America was celebrated on the island now known as Hispaniola
during Christopher Columbus’s second voyage and was probably celebrated
by Franciscan friars (O.F.M.) who accompanied him on this journey.
1505 Martin Luther received his
master of arts degree and began the study of law.
1525 Caspar
Peucer, Reformation physician and a Melanchthonian, was born
at Bautzen, Germany (d. 25 September 1602).
1536 The Tlateloco school for
Indian children opened in the suburbs of Mexico City.
1542 Martin Luther wrote his last
will and testament.
1579 The Union of
Arras in the Low Countries of Europe was signed. Catholics,
outraged by Calvinist destruction of their churches and images,
resubmitted to Spain, breaking the unity of the Dutch resistance
against the Spaniards.
1699
Philipp Friedrich Hiller, pastor and writer of hymns and
devotions, was born at Mühlhausen on the Enz, Germany (d. 24
April 1769).
1714
John Christopher Hartwick, Lutheran pastor who helped
organize the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was born in Saxe-Gotha, Germany
(d. 17 July 1796).
1719
William
Hammond, hymnist, was born in Battle, Sussex, England (d. 19
August 1783, London).
1740
John Fawcett, Baptist clergyman and educator, was born in
Yorkshire, England (d. 25 July 1817, Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, England).
1793 The Virginia Special
(Lutheran) Conference was organized.
1800
James Cameron, missionary to Madagascar, was born in Scotland
(d. 3 October 1875).
1804
Johan N. Brun (1745–1816),
hymnist, became bishop of Bergen.
1827
Johann Christoph Wilhelm Lindemann, president of the
Evangelical Lutheran Teachers Seminary (Addison, Illinois), was born in
Goettingen, Hanover (d. 15 January 1879).
1832 French artist Gustave
Doré
was born in Strasbourg, France (d. 23 January 1883).
1835 The
Swedish Missionary Society was founded.
1835
John Henry Wilburn Stuckenberg, professor at Wittenberg
College (Springfield, Ohio), was born in Bramsche, near Osnabrueck,
Hannover, Germany (d. 28 May 1903).
1851
John Nicum, professor at Wagner Lutheran College (Staten
Island, New York), was born in Winnenden, Wuerttemberg, Germany (d. 1
November 1909).
1852 Louis
Braille, developer of the printing system for the blind, died
(b. 4 January 1809).
1853 The first conference of
Swedish Lutheran congregations was held in Moline, Illinois.
1858 Sick in bed on Epiphany while
convalescing from a serious illness,
William C. Dix (1837–1898)
read the Gospel for the day and by evening had composed “As with
Gladness Men of Old”
based on that Gospel.
1870
Ambrose Henkel, founder of the Henkel Press and translator of
Luther’s
Small
Catechism into English, died (b. 11 July 1786).
1875
Enno A. Duemling, Synodical Conference institutional
missionary in Milwaukee, was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana (d. 22 October
1946).
1884 Gregor
Johann Mendel (b. 20 July 1822), Austrian-born (modern
Czechoslovakia) Roman Catholic Augustinian monk whose observations
became the basis of the theory of heredity, died.
1887
Virgil P. Brock, American music evangelist, was born (d.
1978).
1896 Vergilius T. A. Ferm, American
Lutheran theologian, was born in Sioux City, Iowa. As professor of
philosophy for many years at the College of Wooster in Ohio, Ferm
authored and edited many important works on religion, including The
Encyclopedia of Religion (1945).
1906 Legal
separation of church and state in France began.
1911
Samuel Alfred Ort, president of the General Synod, died (b.
11 November 1843 at Lewistown, Pennsylvania).
1921
Alexander Whyte, who was influential in the Free Church of
Scotland, died (b. 13 January 1836, Kirriemuir, Forfarshire).
1934 Peter Deyneka and four other
men founded the Slavic
(Russian) Gospel Association in Chicago.
1948 Janani Luwum
was converted to Christianity in Uganda. Eventually he became an
archbishop and was killed by the brutal dictator Idi Amin in 1977.
1957 The first baptisms took place
in the Missouri Synod mission at Irelya, New Guinea. There were
seventy-nine of them.
1966 Harold Robert Perry became the
auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. He
was the second African American since 1875 to be elevated to a
bishopric in the U.S.
1977 Bishop
Hanns Lilje, Lutheran World Federation president and
ecumenist, died in Hanover, Germany (b. 1899).
1979 Frederick W. Lorberg,
president of Missouri Synod's Florida-Georgia District (1957–1963), died
in Orlando, Florida (b. 18 October 1907). In 1931 Lorberg began a
mission congregation in Jacksonville, Florida. He served as pastor of
Grace Lutheran Church for thirty-three years. He was executive
secretary of missions and church extension of the Florida-Georgia
District from 1964 to 1973. During his retirement from 1973 to 1976,
Lorberg served as assistant pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
in Orlando. After his full retirement in 1976, Lorberg served many
Florida congregations as vacancy pastor. He was a 1926 graduate of
Saint John’s
College (Winfield, Kansas) and a 1931 graduate of Concordia Seminary
(Saint Louis).
1982
Jonathan Udo Ekong, founding father of the Lutheran Church of
Nigeria, died in Ibesikpo, Nigeria.
