This week in religion history – Dec. 2-8

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THE CANADIAN PRESS

Dec. 2

In 1552, St. Francis Xavier, the founder of the Jesuits, died while on a missionary journey to China.

In 2002, Rowan Williams became leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans as he was confirmed as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. He replaced the Most Rev. George Carey.

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Dec. 3

In 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, returned to England after six years of exile in France. He would be martyred on Dec. 29, killed by soldiers sent by his former friend, King Henry II.

In 1552, Saint Francis Xavier died. The Jesuit priest is considered the greatest Roman Catholic missionary of all time.

In 1557, the first covenant toward organization of the Presbyterian Church was signed in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 2008, breakaway Anglicans from Canada and the United States formed a new church in Chicago, the Anglican Church in North America. The new church brought together conservative Anglicans who objected to same-sex marriage blessings and gay bishops and offered believers a conservative Anglican theology.

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Dec. 4

In 1619, a group of settlers from Bristol, England, arrived at Berkeley Hundred in present-day Charles City County, Va., where they held a service thanking God for their safe arrival. (Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving in America, ahead of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Massachusetts.)

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Dec. 5

In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued his Witch Bull, ordering an inquisition to systematically discover, torture and execute witches throughout Europe. It was so influential that witchcraft was punished in the American colonies as long as two centuries later.

In 1848, Joseph Mohr, author of the enduring Christmas hymn “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night), died. He was a Roman Catholic vicar in Austria.

In 1988, defrocked U.S. television evangelist Jim Bakker was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of fraud.

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Dec. 6

In 1965, Pope Paul VI announced plans for an extraordinary jubilee period to be celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church from Jan. 1 to May 29, 1966. The Feast of Pentecost Jubilee was a period of special grace for Catholics as they became familiar with the decisions of the Second Vatican Council. The Vatican also announced that the Pope had given permission for publication of all documents in Vatican archives concerning the Second World War.

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Dec. 7

In AD 374, Ambrose, an early church father, was consecrated Bishop of Milan, Italy. His influential works on theology and ethics made him — along with Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great — one of the “four doctors” of the Western (Latin) Church.

In 1661, under pressure from the British Parliament, the American colony of Massachusetts suspended its Corporal Punishment Act of 1656, which had imposed harsh penalties on Quakers and other religious Nonconformists.

In 1829, the British rulers of India outlawed the custom of suttee — the immolation of widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres.

In 1965, the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches formally reconciled by reversing a mutual excommunication of each other that dated back over 900 years to July 1054.

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Dec. 8

In 1694, Noel Chabanal, a French Jesuit missionary in Canada, was murdered by a renegade Huron. He was one of the group known as the Jesuit Martyrs of North America canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930.

In 1852, Laval University in Quebec City, the earliest French-language university in North America, was granted a royal charter. Established in Quebec City, it was named after Msgr. Francois de Laval, the first bishop of Quebec.

In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment of her own conception.

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(The Canadian Press)

13:49ET 23-11-12