869 Patriarch Photius I (ca. 820–893) of Constantinople was condemned by a Roman synod and later by a general council at Constantinople. But the various rulers of the area began choosing up sides, leading toward the split of the Eastern and Western churches within the next two hundred years.

1556 Martin Agricola, cantor of Magdeburg, died (b. 6 January 1486, Schwiebus, Brandenburg).

1642 The first presbytery in Ireland was formed at Carrickfergus when the Scottish army was sent to Ireland to quell a rebellion there.

1692 Bridget Bishop became the first of nineteen suspected witches hanged during the Salem witch trials.

1695 François Fénelon (1651–1715) was consecrated archbishop of Cambrai, one of the richest and most important sees in France.

1800 Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, German musician and composer, died at Schwedt an der Oder (b. 31 March 1747).

1809 Pope Pius VII (1740–1823) excommunicated Napoleon, who had seized papal lands.

1839 Otto Hermann Walther (1809–1841), brother of C. F. W. Walther, was installed as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church (Saint Louis).

1847 Eduard Raimund Baierlein (1819–1901), missionary to the Chippewas (Ojibwa) in Michigan as well as to the country of India, arrived in Frankenmuth, Michigan, to begin his work there.

1850 Edward Traill Horn, professor and president of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was born in Easton, Pennsylvania (d. 4 March 1915).

1850 The American Bible Union was founded, organized by Baptists who had seceded from the American and Foreign Bible Society.

1854 James Augustine Healy (1830–1900) was ordained the first African American priest in Notre Dame Cathedral.

1862 Herman Adolph Polack, son of the Rev. W. G. Polack and Maria Elizabeth, nÈe Hans, was born in Crete Township, Will County, Illinois. He was educated at the Missouri State Normal School, Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He married Wilhelmina Henrietta Stohs at Bremen, Kansas, 12 February 1885. He taught public school in East Saint Louis, Illinois, then became a Lutheran parochial school teacher, serving schools in Saint Louis, Missouri; Wausau, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; and other places. He was an accomplished organist, composer and choir director. Together with H. Ilse he served on the music committee of the Evangelical  Lutheran Hymnbook (1912). He died at Lakewood, Ohio, 25 April 1930. [The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 561]

1877 Friedrich A. G. Tholuck, German Lutheran Bible scholar and theologian, died (b. 30 March 1799).

1888 Herman Harms was born in Zahrenholz, Hanover, Germany (d. 11 March 1978, Waukegan, Illinois). From 1902 to 1908 he attended Concordia College and Seminary of the Hermannsburger Freikirche in Uelzen, Germany. He then came to America and graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1909. He served as vice-president and president of the Iowa District of the Missouri Synod, president of the Iowa District East and vice-president of the synod.

1909 Unitarian minister, author and reformer Edward Everett Hale died (b. 3 April 1822).

1915 William H. Cummings (b. 22 August 1831), famed English musicologist and composer, died.

1919 The Slovak Zion Synod was organized at Braddock, Pennsylvania by nineteen pastors, most of whom had recently arrived from Czechoslovakia. It entered the United Lutheran Church of America in 1920.

1920 The Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church was incorporated at its third synodical meeting, held in Fairview Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1921 Edwin O. Excell (b. 13 December 1851), American hymn writer, died.

1925 The United Church of Canada came into being with its inaugural service, uniting the Methodist and Presbyterian churches of Canada.

1930 Adolf von Harnack, German theologian and church historian, died (b. 7 May 1851, Dorpat [Tartu]).

1937 The first ministerial candidates graduated from the Missouri Synod’s Hankow, China, seminary.

1953 The East German Communist government announced that its attack on churches was over. It had tried repeatedly to force youths to renounce the Lutheran Junge Gemeinde, but hundreds bravely refused.

1966 Walter Guenther Tillmanns, professor at Wartburg Seminary (Dubuque, Iowa), died (b. 16 November 1913, Altenburg, Germany).

1978 August C. Rehwaldt, professor emeritus of Concordia College (Portland, Oregon), died in  Portland (b. 7 September 1896, Valparaiso, Indiana). Rehwaldt taught for thirty-four years at Concordia College (Milwaukee) and for ten years at the Portland school.

1983 The United Presbyterian Church (U.P.C.U.S.A.) and the Southern Presbyterian Church (P.C.U.S.) reunited in Atlanta, Georgia, forming the Presbyterian Church (USA). The merged church body had three million members. The two groups had separated 122 years before because of the American Civil War.