A 19th century poet who wrote a poem in memory of Constantine’s conversion. [tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Constantine, history, Matthew-Arnold[/tags]  

One of the first "superintendents" of the newly formed Methodist Church in America. Appointed Superintendent with Dr. Thomas Coke at the Christmas Conference meeting at Baltimore in 1784. [tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Francis-Asbury, history, Methodist, Thomas[/tags]  

The doctrine that through self-torture, or self-denial, one can discipline himself to reach a high state, spiritually or intellectually. [tags]Asceticism, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]  

Bishop of Alexandria. The first to introduce monasticism to the West. In 335, when he was banished to Trier (in modern Germany) he was accompanied by two monks. He wrote The Life of Saint Anthony and its circulation spread the idea in the West. In A.D. 367 he wrote an…

A Christian philosopher at Athens. One of the first Christian Apologists to counter the accusations of the enemies of Christianity and point out the weaknesses of paganism. [tags]Apologists, Athenagoras, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]  

Called the "Scourge of God". Marched up the Danube river and in June 452 he advanced on Rome with his cavalry and well-armed foot-soldiers from Asia. There he met with Bishop Leo, an emissary from Rome, to negotiate for peace. He agreed to spare Rome, and he withdrew from Italy.…

By 1530, when a summit conference of Reformation convened in Augsburg to draw up a common statement of faith, leadership of the movement had begun to pass out of Luther’s hands. The reformer was still an outlaw and unable to attend. The task of presenting Lutheranism fell to a young…

(354-430) Bishop of Hippo, near Carthage in N. Africa. During the decades-long debate over the Arian heresy, he used the psychological analogy to explain the Trinity of God. God is like the memory, intelligence, and will in the mind of a man, thus, we may think of one person when…

As a farm boy in Connecticut was affected by the Great Awakening and repented while mowing a field without emotion or ecstasy, but with great clarity. Soon after joined the ranks of the revivalists and eventually formed the First Baptist Church of Middlesborough, Massachusetts. [tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Great-Awakening, history, Isaac-Backus[/tags]…

A biographer who wrote of Luther that he was "an irascible old man, petulant, peevish, unrestrained and at times positively coarse." [tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Roland-Bainton[/tags]  

In October 1792 Carey, Fuller, and eleven Baptist colleagues formed the Baptist Missionary Society and within a year Carey and his family were on their way to India. [tags]Baptist-Missionary-Society, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]  

In 1608, John Smyth baptized himself in Amsterdam. He had been a fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, but as a Separatist fled from the harsh rule of James I’s England. After his death one of his associates, Thomas Helwys, led back to England a group that had split from Smyth’s…

Barbarians were Europeans who spoke no Greek nor Latin who eventually mastered Europe as the Roman Empire deteriorated. For the most part they were tribes from the north, originally in or near Scandinavia — Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Goths, Lombards, Burgundians and others. In the third century they were at a…

A Jew from Cyprus who was among the earliest Jerusalem converts. He traveled to Antioch in Syria to help evangelize Gentiles. Was joined by Saul of Tarsus around A.D. 44. [tags]Apostle-Barnabas, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]  

(1886-1968) Swiss theologian and writer. Greatly influenced the World Council’s General Secretary «Willem Adolph Visser’t Hooft». Rejected his liberal training and returned to a study of the Bible. He published his Romans commentary in 1919, considered the beginning of neo-orthodoxy. Barth taught that the Bible becomes the Word of God…

(?-379) Designer of the Rule of discipline under which the monasticism of Greek Orthodoxy is organized to this day. [tags]Basil, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]  

Presbyterian and Congregational minister in New England, preached a sermon in 1835 entitled A Plea for the West. Believed that a vast new empire was opening in the American wilderness and that Christians should seize the opportunity and shape the religious and political destiny of the nation by preaching, distributing…

Provided the constitution for Western monasticism. Born in Norsia, NE of Rome, became an ascetic and went into hermitage in a cave south of Rome. As an abbot at a nearby monastery, his discipline nearly earned his death by resentful monks. In 529 he began the most famous monastery in…

In 1147, this mystic called for the Second Crusade while the kingdom of Jerusalem faced its first crisis. As one of Christendom’s most influential churchmen and abbot he pursued Peter Abelard as devoutly as he preached the Second Crusade. Felt that faith brooked no dispute and worked to have Abelard…

An Oxford Scholar who wrote that in Gnosticism, there is a Supreme God, under whom there are lesser gods, emanations, until at the very bottom of the chain is a god who, "while powerful enough to create is silly enough not to see that creation is wrong." [tags]BlogRodent, Charles-Bigg, church-history,…

Dismayed at the hundreds of divisions within Protestantism, in 1960, as chief executive officer of the United Presbyterian Church in USA, and later General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, he proposed that the Protestant Episcopal Church and Northern Presbyterians jointly invite the Methodists and the United Church of…

On 21 January 1525, at a secret meeting at the house of Felix Manz, Reformation leaders met to counter attempts to dictate church policy by the City Council of Zurich. There George Blaurock, a former priest, requested Conrad Grebel to baptize him in the apostolic fashion — upon confession of personal…

The teachings and dissent of John Wycliffe found greater support in Bohemia because it was joined to a strong national party led by John Hus. The Czech reformer came from peasant parents in southern Bohemia, a small town called Husinetz. When Hus was burned on 6 July 1415 the Bohemian…

Became Queen of England June 1533 through a secret marriage to King Henry VIII. His earlier marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void by an English church court upon Henry’s insistence. The explicit reason given was because that she was the widow of Henry’s brother and was…

The French general who ascended to power in France after a period of confusion ending with a coup d’etat. Forged the Concordat of 1801 to give the Catholic Church a special place in France. His empire collapsed in 1815 and he was banished to an island in the Atlantic. [tags]BlogRodent,…