Friedrich Wyneken, Pastor and Missionary

387 Saint Monica (332–387), mother of Augustine, is commemorated.

1256 Pope Alexander IV (ca. 1199–1261) founded the order of Augustinian hermits.

1415 The followers of religious reformer John Wycliffe (ca. 1320–1384) were condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance.

1453 Patriarch Yohannis XI, one of a long line of patriarchs in the independent Ethiopian Coptic church, died.

1493 Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503) issued a bull on the West Indies, drawing a line of demarcation between the colonial possessions of Spain and Portugal.

1521 Martin Luther was “kidnapped” and taken to the Wartburg Castle for safety and protection while on his way home from the Diet (Congress) of Worms. The “kidnapping” was done with the blessing of the German ruler Frederick the Wise. During his months at the Wartburg, Luther translated the New Testament into German.

1535 Carthusian monks were hanged, drawn and quartered in London for refusing to submit to Henry VIII as head of the church.

1608 The Protestant Union was formed at Aushausen, Germany, under the leadership of Frederick IV of the Palatinate.

1626 Arthur Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells, one of the translators of the King James Version, died (b. September 1569).

1673 Michael Schirmer, German Lutheran hymn writer, died in Berlin (b. 18 July 1606, Leipzig).

1771 Peter Muhlenberg (1746–1807) was called as pastor to Woodstock, Virginia.

1784 Carl Gotthelf Glaeser, German music teacher and composer, was born in Weissenfels (d. 16 April 1829, Barmen).

1795 David Henkel, “most gifted of the Henkel family,” was born (d. 15 June 1831).

1851 Arthur James Mason, hymn translator, was born in England (d. 24 April 1928).

1853 Ole T. Arneson, hymn translator, was born near Highlandville, Iowa (d. 3 June 1917).

1879 The first Chinese Christian church in New York City opened.

1881 Friedrich Wilhelm Husmann, first secretary of the Missouri Synod, died (b. 9 November 1807, Nordel, Hannover).

1889 Francis Spellman, American Roman Catholic cardinal, was born (d. 2 December 1967).

1923 Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, editor of the British journal  The Expositor (which included articles by many leading scholars) and of a 50-volume Expositor’s Bible (published 1888–1905), died (b. 10 October 1851).

1925 Johann Dietrich Ehlen, president of the Missouri Synod’s South Dakota District, died in Sioux City, Iowa (b. 21 May 1859, Gross-Meckelsen, Hannover). He was a teacher in Germany before immigrating to the U.S. in 1882. He studied at Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) and served as a pastor in Illinois from 1885 to 1890, when he received a call to served as a Reiseprediger (traveling missionry) in South Dakota, especially for the Yankton Indian Reservation. He served widely throughout the state and officially as a circuit counselor, vice-president and member of the mission board. He was district president from 1912 to 1918. In 1920 he resigned from the ministry, in part because of anti-German sentiments relating to World War I. He moved to Sioux City near a son and served as a chaplain at the Lutheran Hospital.

1963 Alfred August Friedrich Schmieding, a professor at Concordia Teachers College (River Forest, Illinois), died (b. 3 April 1888).

1964 Messengers for Christ (Lutheran Bible Translators) was organized in North Hollywood, California.

1984 Andrew John Buehner died in Saint Louis, Missouri (b. 25 January 1905, Clayton, South Dakota). He attended Concordia College (Saint Paul, Minnesota) and graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1928. He spent most of the next twenty-two years working in India as a missionary. There he served as secretary for the Trivandrum District and as director of education in Kerala. After returning to the United States, he served on the Board of Directors for the Northern Nebraska District. He later was an editor at Concordia Publishing House.