Berengarius of Tours and the Dispute on the Lord’s Supper When Berengarius of Tours expressed his disagreement with the teachings of Lanfranc of Bec regarding the Lord’s Supper, he might have meant to continue the peaceful discussion that had begun in the ninth century between Paschasius Radbertus...

Tsehay Tolessa – Through a Fiery Furnace When, on July 28, 1979, the Lutheran pastor Gudina Tumsa was abducted at the end of a church service, the troubles for his wife were far from over. [1] Kidnapped at the same time, Tsehay Tolessa was left outside the city walls without any explanations. She...

Adriaan Reland – A Scholar for God’s Glory In academic circles, Adriaan Reland is hailed as a remarkable Orientalist and linguist whose studies and writings have contributed to dispel many prejudiced views of his time. What most sources ignore, however, is his motivation. Born in 1676 in the small...

“Well-Beloved Child” – Letters from Mothers to their Children From the earliest times, mothers have felt the responsibility of training and instructing their children. We find plenty of examples both in the Bible and in church history. This desire has often been expressed in their letters. When...

Caesarius of Arles and His Sermons on Christ’s Atonement “Why did our Lord Jesus Christ, the power and wisdom of the Father, effect the salvation of man, not by His divine power and sole might, but by physical humiliation and human struggle? ... What need was there for Christ our Lord to accept his...

Hilda – The Abbess of Whitby The name of Hilda of Whitby is almost legendary in English history. She ran two abbeys, educated some of the finest minds in England (including five bishops), discovered and sponsored the first English poet, and convened the crucial Synod of Whitby. Her authority and...

Prosper of Aquitaine and His Defense of God’s Grace The fourth-century debate between Augustine of Hippo and Pelagius left a profound mark in church history, with Pelagius’s views condemned as heresy at the ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431. In a nutshell, Augustine explained that, because of...

Catherine Marsh – Loving the Unloved In 1853, thousands of men arrived on the quiet Sydenham hills to build an ambitious structure: the Crystal Palace, where Charles Spurgeon later preached to a crowd of 23,654 people. Building such a capable compound, surrounded by gardens and fountains, took an...

Francis Turretin and His Love for Biblical Truth Francis, the third of the seven children of Benedetto and Louise Turretin [1] , was born on October 17, 1623 and named after his paternal grandfather. Recognizing the boy’s exceptional intelligence, Benedetto encouraged his studies. But Benedetto...

Lactantius – An Original Writer Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius was born around the year 255 in North Africa. Quickly earning a reputation for his intellectual prowess, in 290 he was invited by Emperor Diocletian to serve as professor of Latin and rhetoric in Nicomedia of Bithynia (today’s...

The Women Who Helped Chrysostom Some time ago, I wrote about Olympias, a widow of noble birth who became one of John Chrysostom’s greatest supporters. But she was not alone. She lived in a community of women near the Great Church in Constantinople – in fact, only a wall separated their home from...

Sybil Mosely Bingham and the Challenges of Missionary Life in Hawaii Sybil’s admission to the mission field reminds me of a scene of a movie. She was asking for directions to her accommodations when a young man offered to take her there. The man, Hiram Bingham, was preparing to leave as a...

John Ross and the Gospel in Korea In the autumn of 1874, the Scottish missionary John Ross arrived at a village known as “Korean Gate,” near the eastern border between Manchuria (in north-east China) and Korea. Sent to Manchuria by the Scottish United Presbyterian Mission, he had been working for...

Martin Luther – A Ground-Breaking Translator While living in incognito in the Wartburg Castle (after the Diet of Worms), Martin Luther spent his time translating the New Testament from Greek and Latin into German. It was not the first German translation, but Luther found the others inadequate. Both...

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke – Learning to Number His Days “One thing Christianity and we National Socialists have in common, and only one: we demand the whole man.” These words, pronounced by Roland Freisler, State Secretary of the Reich, at the time of the trial of Helmuth von Moltke, were...

Perpetua and Felicitas – Two Martyred Mothers In A.D. 202, Emperor Septimius Severus tightened his measures against Christians who refused to pay homage to the imperial genius, the spirit of the emperor. Compliance required a minimal effort: a simple sprinkling of a few grains of incense on a...

Sally Jones Charles – Pillar of the Welsh Revival at Bala Most accounts of Welsh church history recognize the impressive contributions of Thomas Charles [1] , the pastor of a Calvinistic Methodist church in Bala, Wales, in the Welsh Revival of his century, in the establishment of a great number of...

Hannah More and Her Lasting Influence on Education and Christian Service She has been described as the most influential woman in the British abolitionist movement – in fact, one of the most important women in 18 th -century Britain. After her death in 1833, the Christian Observer dared to say: “...

Melito of Sardis – Pastor, Theologian, and Poet Melito is not a familiar name today. Until the last century, we could only find a mention of him in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History , mostly in connection with the controversy over the day in which the feast of Pascha (Easter) was to be celebrated...

Blandina – God’s Strength in Weakness When the Roman authorities hung Blandina to a pole and exposed her to a crowd of blood-thirsty spectators, they thought they could frighten anyone who rebelled to their rules. What they didn’t know is that they were holding her up as an example that gave new...

Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg – The First Protestant Missionary to India While William Carey’s role in the evangelization of India is undisputed, few remember a two-men team who preceded him by 88 years. In reality, the German Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, who landed in the Indian...

Margherita Datini – The Wisdom and Faith of an Ordinary Medieval Woman Church history books are beginning to devote more space to women. Treatments of Medieval Christian women, however, is usually limited to a few queens and nuns – those who could express themselves at a time when most women’s...

Boniface and Leoba Some have the impression that, after Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313, everyone in the Roman Empire became Christian (and lived happily ever after). At least, this is what we might get from a cursor reading of church history. In reality, as late as the ninth or tenth century,...

Gregory I’s Female Correspondents Some of our best sources of information about specific women in the early centuries of Christianity come from the correspondence of church fathers, particularly Jerome at the turn of the fifth century and Gregory I about two centuries later. Jerome’s letters were...