Cyprian of Carthage, Pastor and Martyr

681 The Third Council of Constantinople adjourned, having settled the Monothelite controversy in the Eastern Church. Monothelites, who believed Christ had only “one will,” were condemned as heretics by the council, which proclaimed the orthodox belief of two wills in Christ: divine and human.

1087 Pope Victor III died (b. ca. 1026).

1224 Saint Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) allegedly received the stigmata, the crucifixion scars of Christ, on the Mount Albernia, Italy, during an extended period of prayer and fasting.

1498 Tomás de Torquemada, the first Spanish Inquisitor General, died (b. 1420).

1557 Martin Behm, renowned preacher and hymnist, was born in Lauben, Silesia (d. 5 February 1622).

1598 “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying” by Philip Nicolai (1556–1608) was written in honor of his pupil who died this day.

1672 Puritan Anne Bradstreet, America’s first noteworthy poet, died (b. ca. 1612).

1796 William Augustus Muhlenberg, great-grandson of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), Episcopal clergyman and hymnist, was born in Philadelphia (d. 8 April 1877).

1810 With the Grito de Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo (1753–1811) proclaimed Mexico’s independence from Spain.

1859 Lewis Eichelberger, General Synod professor, died (b. 25 August 1801, Frederick County, Maryland).

1860 Jacob W. Miller, vice-president of the Missouri Synod for twenty-one years, was born (d. 11 May 1933). He entered the ministry in 1884 and served congregations in Stuttgart and Little Rock, Arkansas, and Saint Paul, Minnesota, before taking a call to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1896. He served as pastor of Saint Paul Lutheran Church there for thirty-seven years.

1878 The first African American parochial school was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas, as part of the Synodical Conference mission effort.

1882 Edward B. Pusey (b. 22 August 1800), English Tractarian, died. Ordained into the Anglican Church in 1829, Pusey became a noted biblical scholar. In 1833 he formally attached himself to the Oxford Movement, an effort to bring doctrines and practices of the early Catholic church back into the Anglican liturgy. When John H. Newman converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1845, leadership of the movement fell to Pusey. He sought to achieve closer union between the two traditions, but his hopes were dashed when the Vatican I Council (1869–1870) declared the doctrine of papal infallibility.

1906 J. B. (John Bertram) Phillips, Anglican clergyman and translator of the New Testament in Modern English, was born (d. 21 July 1982).

1920 William Sanday (b. 1 August 1843), English Bible scholar, died.

1943 Louis J. Sieck (1884–1952) became president of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis).

1951 The Lutheran Building at 210 North Broadway in Saint Louis was dedicated as the first formal headquarters of the Missouri Synod.

1953 Concordia High School, Tai Po Road, Hong Kong, opened.

1976 In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the 65th triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church officially approved the ordination of women. This allowed the official recognition of fifteen women previously ordained in Philadelphia and Washington. Three and a half months later Jacqueline Means of Indianapolis, Indiana, became the first woman ordained into the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. after its official sanction.

1984 After eight years of operating out of a local church basement, Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary (Saint Catharines, Ontario) dedicated its first facility.

2000 Arlen J. Bruns died in Topeka, Kansas (b. 23 May 1915, Denver, Iowa). A 1938 graduate of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis), he served as a pastor in Meade, Great Bend and Junction City, Kansas. He was a member of the Kansas District Board of Directors from 1951 to 1960 and served as vice-president (1960–1969) and president (1970–1978) of the district. He was chairman of the placement committee of the LCMS Council of Presidents during the 1970s.