January 8
482
Severinus of Noricum, an early missionary who preached
Christianity in what is now Austria, died (b. ca. 410).
1198 Italian cardinal Lotario di
Segni was elected pope, taking the name of
Innocent III (ca. 1161–1216).
1438 The
Council of Florence began at Ferrara, Italy, with the
Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in attendance.
1557 Margrave
Albrecht of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, a hymnist, died at
Pforzheim (b. 28 March 1522).
1560 Jan Łaski (Johannes a
Lascow; John Laski, or Lasco), a Polish reformer and associate of
Erasmus, died (b. 1499 probably at Lask, near Lodz, Poland).
1583 Simon
Episcopius, an Arminian proponent who drew up the formula of
faith held by Arminians, was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 4 April
1643).
1642 Mathematician, physicist,
astronomer and devout Roman Catholic Galileo
Galilei (b. 15 February 1564, Pisa, Italy), died in Arcetri,
Italy, under house arrest by the Inquisition.
1736 Jean le
Clerc (Clericus), learned theologian and Arminian, died (b.
19 March 1657).
1788
Jacob Leist, president of the Ohio Synod, was born in Snyder
County, Pennsylvania (d. 7 November 1870).
1792 Lowell Mason,
American sacred music composer, was born in Medfield, Massachusetts (d.
11 August 1872).
1825
C. H. Rudolph Lange, Lutheran educator and theologian, was
born in Polish Wartenberg, Prussia (d. 2 October 1892).
1849 During the
Italian Revolution of 1848–1849,
a popular uprising in the Papal States deprived Pope Pius IX of his
temporal powers and forced him to flee to Gaeta on the Italian Coast.
1854
Wm. Bengo Collyer, hymnist, died in Peckham, England (b. 14
April 1782, Blackheath, England).
1860 George Weller was born in New
Orleans, Louisiana (d. 17 December 1924). He graduated from Concordia
Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1882 and served as a pastor in Marysville,
Nebraska. He later became director (president) and professor at
Concordia Teachers College (Seward, Nebraska), where he served from
1894 to 1924.
1873
Ludwig Adolf Petri, anti-rationalist Lutheran theologian in
Hanover, died (b. 16 November 1803, Lüthorst, Hannover,
Germany).
1903 Clarence H. Peters was born in
Linn, Kansas (d. 18 May 1984, Saint Louis). He graduated from Concordia
Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1927 and served congregations in Venus and
Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Saint Louis. From 1944 to 1947 he was the
secretary of the Missouri Synod Board for Foreign Missions, and from
1946 to 1962 he was the chairman of the Board for Young People’s Work.
1920 J. A.
O. (Jacob Aall Ottesen) Preus II, eighth president of the
Missouri Synod, was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota (d. 13 August 1994).
1931
George Washington Sandt, Lutheran theologian and director of
the Philadelphia seminary from 1904 to 1931, died (b. 22 February 1854,
Belfast, Pennsylvania).
1956 Jim Elliot
(b. 8 October 1927) and four other American Plymouth Brethren
missionaries were martyred along the Curaray River by the Auca Indians
in Ecuador.
1958 The
India Evangelical Lutheran Church was organized.
1975 Louis
Lochner, foreign correspondent for the Associated Press in
Germany, died (b. 22 February 1887).
1979 The John of Beverley Chair for
deaf ministries was established at
Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis).
1996 Lewis W. Spitz Sr. (b. 31 July
1895, Minden, Nebraska), died in Saint Louis, Missouri. He graduated
from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1918. He served as pastor in
Lovell, Wyoming, and Bertrand and Blue Hill, Nebraska. He was later a
professor at Saint Paul's College (Concordia, Missouri) and Concordia
Seminary (Saint Louis). His service to the Missouri Synod included
membership on the Press Committee, the Board for Higher Education, the
Board of Appeals and the Board for Young People's Work. He was also an
associate editor of The Lutheran Witness,
Der Lutheraner and the Concordia Theological Monthly.
In 1930 he received his M.A. from Washington University (Saint Louis),
and in 1943 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He
retired in 1971.
