ca. 160 Tertullian, Latin ecclesiastical writer, was born, probably at Carthage, the son of a pagan centurion (d. ca. 230).

1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral (ca. 1467ca. 1520) took possession of Brazil for Portugal with religious ceremonies on Easter Monday.

1509 Pope Julius II (14431513) placed the Italian state of Venice under interdict.

1541 A conference at Regensburg (Ratisbon) opened between Lutherans and Catholics. Its purpose was to restore religious unity in Germany.

1565 Blessed Osanna of Cattaro (also Hosanna, known in Croatian as Ozana Kotorska), a Catholic Montenegrin Dominican tertiary, visionary, anchoress and convert from Greek Orthodoxy, died (b. 25 November 1493).

1605 Pope Leo XI died (b. 2 June 1535).

1613 Robert Abercromby, a Jesuit missionary in Scotland in the time of the persecutions, died (b. 1532).

1623 Johann Adam Reincken, a distinguished North German organist who was remarkable for his longevity, encompassing style and his influence on young organists such asJohann Sebastian Bach (16851750), was born (d. 24 November 1722).

1688 In an attempt to win popular supportJames II of England (16331701) reissued his Declaration of Religious Indulgence, which promised no more religious tests and freedom of conscience forever.

1775 Peter Böhler (b. 31 December 1712), Moravian minister and missionary, died.

1793 The first Synod of the German Reformed Church met at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There were 178 congregations and 15,000 communicants reported. The most important congregations were at Philadelphia, Lancaster and Germantown, Pennsylvania, and Frederick, Maryland.

1824 Anne Ross Cundell Cousin, hymnist, was born (d. 6 December 1906, Edinburgh, Scotland).

1844 John Henry Harpster, missionary of the Lutheran General Synod in India, was born in Center Hall, Pennsylvania (d. 1 February 1911).

1859 George Washington Doane, American Episcopal clergyman and hymnist, died (b. 27 May 1799).

1862 George Washington Bethune, hymn translator and pastor in the Reformed Church, died while preaching in Florence, Italy (b. 18 March 1805).

1893 Christoph Ludwig Eberhardt, Michigan Synod missionary and president, died (b. 3 January 1831, Lauffen, Württemberg).

1901 Richard Redhead, composer, died (b. 1 March 1820, Harrow, England).

1926 Theodore Brohm, director and professor at the Missouri Synod’s teachers seminary at Addison, Illinois, died (b. 10 April 1846).

1950 The Communist-controlled National Catholic Church was created in Rumania at a congress under Andreas Agotha, whom Rome promptly excommunicated.

1959 The last Canadian missionary left the People’s Republic of China.

1960 Police in Nowa Huta, Poland, tried to remove a cross. Women protested. Men joined to protect the women from police brutality. Riots developed. The Communist Party headquarters was burned. This was one of many religious protests that forced the Communists to grant a measure of religious leeway to Poland.

1983 Medardo Gomez, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in San Salvador, and Angel Ibarra, director of medical services of Lutheran Social Services of El Salvador, were arrested by the National Police. Gomez was released three days later. He was president of the Lutheran Synod of El Salvador, a Missouri Synod partner church with 3,266 members. The previous month he had just been elected chairman of CONCAP, the council of Missouri Synod-related churches in Central America and Panama.

1998 Won-Sang Ji, president emeritus of the Lutheran Church in Korea, died.

2014 Popes John XXIII and John Paul II were canonized as saints in the Roman Catholic Church.

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