Posted Dec. 31, 2007 MINNEAPOLIS 1:55pm CT | LONDON 07:55pm | SYDNEY 06:55am Jan. 1, 2008

Researched and written by Gloriscope staff

1988: Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), the largest U.S. Lutheran denomination, started to exist. – ELCA is the result of a merger of the American Lutheran Church (ALC), the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) and the Lutheran Church of America (LCA).

1970: The General Roman Calendar of the Roman Catholic Church came into effect..

1956: The former State of East Germany prohibited the sale of Christian newspapers..

1937: Death of J. Gresham Machen, a conservative U.S. Presbyterian theologian who fought against theological liberalism in the U.S.. mainline denominations.

1795: U.S. President George Washington delivers his “National Thanksgiving Proclamation” to the U.S. Congress. – The proclamation declared a National Day of Thanksgiving, to be held on Thursday, February 19, 1795. President Washington said in his speech that it was “our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced.”

1751: Pope Benedict XIV promulgated his encyclical Celebrationem Magni, extending the celebration of the Jubilee on the entire Catholic church in the world.

1708: Death of Esdras Edzardus, a German Lutheran orientalist and missionary among the Jews.

1604: Birth of the German Evangelical Protestant theologian Gottfried Ollearius.

1484: Birth of Ulrich Zwingli (died 1531), a Swiss theologian and a founder of the Reformed Church.

404: Last gladiators’ games in Rome, as a result of Christian resistance against staging public mortal combats for entertainment.

379: Death of Basil of Caesarea (”Basil the Great”), a bishop of Caesarea and a prominent theologian, one of the Cappadocian Fathers of the Early Church.

________________________

TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY!

Published in the U.S.A. Copyright © 4T4C News Corp. 2007. All rights reserved.