Mother Teresa was baptized Anjezë (Agnes) Gonxha today in 1910 in the small town of Skopje, in the Ottoman Empire. Her father was a prosperous Albanian merchant, but he died when Agnes was eight during the chaos which engulfed the Balkans in the First World War. Her mother Drana took Agnes with her when she visited other poor, sick and elderly people, and when she organised local prayer groups. From these beginnings, Agnes eventually found her vocation as a nun, working with destitute and dying people in Calcutta, India. She was made a saint in 2016, less than 20 years after she died, and is now known as St Teresa of Calcutta.
The body of a nine year-old boy, Hugh, was discovered in a well in Lincoln, today in 1255. His death was pinned on English Jews, and became notoriously influential in spreading the blood libel conspiracy theory. Ninety Jewish people were arrested and 19 of them were put to death. Hugh became ’Little St Hugh of Lincoln’, although he was never canonized, and became an object of pilgrimage. It is thought that the Bishop and Dean of Lincoln manipulated the event to make money for the cathedral.
Today is the feast of the Ethiopian eunuch, who was baptised by the side of the road by Philip, a disciple of Jesus, in the Book of Acts. Bachos, as he is known in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, is one of the top three eunuchs in church history, the other two being the theologian Origen (who made himself a eunuch), and Peter Abelard (whose eunuch-hood was imposed on him by the angry uncle of Heloise, the woman he loved).
The Christianisation of the Roman Empire took a step forward today in 399 when a new law was announced forbidding amusements such as theatrical plays and horse contests on ‘the Lord’s Day’ – that is, on Sunday. The only exception was the emperor’s birthday, which could be celebrated with shows and spectacles even on a Sunday. However, that exception was abolished 10 years later.
The first Afrikaans Bible was published today in 1933, and was introduced to the public during a Bible Festival in Bloemfontein, South Africa. It was largely the work of Stephanus Jacobus du Toit, who began translating books of the Old and New Testament in the 1880s, and his son, the poet Jakob Daniel du Toit, who completed the work. There had been resistance to the translation, as Afrikaans was felt to be inferior to Dutch, and the churches were very attached to the Dutch Statenbijbel of 1637.
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