Cloud of Witnesses

Queen Ranavalona II of Madagascar Missionaries to Madagascar trembled when they heard the name of the new queen – Ranavalona II. They remembered a previous queen by the same name, who had cruelly persecuted her Christian subjects. But Ranavalona II was nothing like her predecessor Ranavalona I...

Mathieu Majal Désubas – A Young Huguenot Martyr Huguenots in 18th-century France were well-aware of the dangers they faced by attending Protestant services. Many had been Protestants since birth, children or grandchildren of a generation that had enjoyed some freedoms allowed by the 1598 Edict of...

Christiana Tsai and Her Persistence in Trials One day, Christiana Tsai woke up to find the room spinning around her. Her body grew stiff while the light stabbed her eyes as with daggers. This was the beginning of a long, intermittent illness that doctors could not explain. Her inability to move...

Paulus Orosius – A Forgotten Augustinian Historian “In the next little light smiles that pleader of Christian times, of whose Latin work Augustine availed himself.” [1] This is how Dante described his brief encounter, in Paradise, with an ancient historian whose name apparently needed no mention...

Leonor de Cisneros and Other Women of the Spanish Reformation When we think of the Protestant Reformation, countries like Italy and Spain rarely come to mind. And yet, they were deeply affected by it, even though its influence was quickly suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church. The Inquisition in...

Cyril Lucaris – A Contested Reformer On June 27, 1638, a man was ordered to board a boat, presumably to move to a different location. Instead, the boat had barely left shore when some guards strangled him and threw his body overboard. This man, Cyril Lucaris, had risen to the highest rank in the...

Jacques Lefèvre D’Etaples – An Early French Reformer The life of Jacques Lefèvre D’Etaples ran almost parallel to that of Martin Luther. Born around 1455 (28 years before Luther), Lefèvre died in 1536, when Luther was still teaching, preaching, and establishing churches. In 1512, when Luther...

Anna Reinhart Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation Most Protestants know the story of Katharina Van Bora, Martin Luther’s wife. Many books and articles have been written about her and her impact on Luther’s life and consequently on the Reformation. Fewer people have heard about Anna Reinhart, wife of...

Justitia Sengers – a Forgotten Sixteenth-Century Exegete Blindness was common in ancient, medieval, and early modern Europe, due to the frequency of infections, malnutrition, accidents, and acts of violence, as well as to the lack of effective treatments. Some men, such as Jan Žižka, a commander of...

Anne Askew and Her Influence on the English Reformation On July 16, 1546, Anne Askew was burned at the stake after suffering terrible tortures – the only woman on record to have tortured in the Tower of London. What caused such a fury against her? Anne was born around 1521 to Sir William Askew and...