Christmas Every Day

1497

The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Florence in the 15th century was at the heart of the Italian Renaissance, the engine of humanist scholarship and great works of art and architecture produced by the likes of Botticelli, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi and Donatello. The patronage of the leading Medici family inspired Florentine institutions and nobles to support these efforts but in the 1490s the city was taken over by someone with far different ideas. This was the monk Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98).

Savonarola was a fiery Dominican who benefited at first from the patronage of the Medici ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent but who then turned against him. Preaching furiously against the corruption, of the pope (the Borgia, Alexander VI), the Medici clique and the rich magnates of the city, Savonarola sparked the coup that ejected the Medici and established a ‘godly’ republic. Bands of young followers dressed as angels patrolled the city, punishing gambling, swearing and drunkenness. Telling Florentines that the End of Time was near, Savonarola organized “Bonfires of the Vanities” where people were urged to divest themselves of all that could separate them from concentrating on the spiritual life: fancy clothes, jewels, cosmetics, rich furniture, classic manuscripts and fine art. These objects were hauled to public fires and burnt. A particularly spectacular demonstration was held this day in 1497. Paul Strathern’s Death in Florence describes the scene:

The bonfires in each neighbourhood around which people had traditionally danced in abandoned fashion during the pre-Savonarolan Carnival were now all amalgamated into one massive bonfire in the Piazza della Signoria, which was intended to accommodate all the vanities that Savonarola’s boys had collected. An eight-sided wooden pyramid had been constructed, with seven tiers, one for each of the seven deadly sins. The vanities were placed on these tiers, and the inside of the pyramid was filled with sacks of straw, piles of kindling wood, and even small bags of dynamite (intended to spread the flames throughout the pyramid, as well as cause incendiary firework effects such as bangs and showers of sparks). In the end, this ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ rose to sixty feet, and the circumference at its base was 240 feet. At its peak was placed wooden effigy made to look like the traditional image of the Devil, complete with hairy cloven-hoofed goats’ legs, pointed ears, horns and a little pointed beard.

It should be noted that in this drive to consume corruption by cleansing fire he was following the example of the earlier wandering Franciscan preacher Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444).

590

Gregory the Great is elected pope.

It would be hard to name a more influential pope of the early Middle Ages than St. Gregory I (540-604), called the Great. (Supporters of the claim of Leo I, also the Great and also a saint, may send their arguments on a postcard to St Margaret’s Church, Winnipeg.) Born into a wealthy Roman family with a pope and many high-ranking officials on his family tree, he was superbly educated in the liberal arts and entered at an early age into political life, becoming Prefect of Rome (the highest rank in the city) by his early 30s. He took office at a miserable time in the history of Rome with Italy ravaged by the barbarian Lombards and still recovering from the depopulation and chaos caused by the Byzantine attempt at reconquest and the plague.

On the death of his father he converted his family villa into a monastery and became a monk, soon rising in influence in the Church. In 579 he was chosen by the pope to lead an embassy to the emperor in Constantinople to whom Rome still owed allegiance. His attempt to convince the emperor to send troops to Italy to stop the Lombard advance was fruitless.

In 590, much against his will, he was elected Pope to replace Pelagius II who died of the plague. He took on this task with great energy and succeeded by the time of his death 14 years later in elevating the status and reach of the Roman papacy. For the previous century the bishops of Rome had had little positive influence on the lands of the western empire which had been lost to the Germanic invaders. Britain had lost contact with civilization for almost a century; Spain was dominated by Arian heretics; and the Church in Gaul was in the hands of the Frankish landowners who had little thought for evangelism. Under Gregory the papacy reached out to assert the international leadership of the Bishop of Rome once more. One of his great achievements was sending the mission of Augustine, a monk from his own monastery, to England to spread Christianity to the German tribes there. He reformed the liturgy and encouraged the music we now call Gregorian chant. He reformed the management of church lands which came to provide food and revenue for the poor of Rome. His book Pastoral Care was translated by Alfred the Great into English and was one of the civilizing books every church had to have a copy of.

1516

Erasmus dedicates his revised version of the New Testament to Pope Leo X.

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was the leading public intellectual of his time, a humanist who used new attitudes and techniques to critique the Christian Church of the early modern period. Born the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest, he became a priest himself but spent his life pursuing humanistic studies and being supported by a series of patrons of the new learning. He travelled widely and became something of a literary celebrity, winning fame for his works in Latin such as Utopia and Praise of Folly, which was critical of Church teaching on purgatory and indulgences.

Influenced by John Colet’s historical approach to Scripture, Erasmus applied his knowledge of Greek and Latin to produce a revised version of the New Testament, amending numerous errors in the Vulgate, the 1,000-year-old Latin version. Though his translation work had papal approval, Erasmus’s Greek New Testament was a spur to many vernacular versions including Luther’s highly influential German version.

Erasmus had enemies on both sides of the religious wars that soon erupted. He and Luther disagreed on the possibility of free will and the nature of the Eucharist while later popes placed his works on The Index of Prohibited Books.

314

Accession of Pope Sylvester I.

Few popes could have reigned at a more important time in the history of the Church. It was during his pontificate that the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity and that religion began to openly flourish in the Roman empire. This was also the time when the first great churches were erected, especially St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, which endured for over 1,000 years before it was levelled to make way for the neo-classical building that now exists on that site.

Sylvester may be even more important for the legends that surrounded him after his death than anything he accomplished in life. Early in the sixth century stories began to be written about an especially close relationship between Sylvester and Constantine, stories in which the emperor, out of gratitude for being cured of leprosy, is said to have elevated the bishop of Rome above all other church figures and submitted himself to him. By the 700s this legend took the form of one of the great forgeries of all time, the Donation of Constantine, which claimed that Constantine, before moving east to his new capital in Constantinople, had granted the papacy sovereignty over the western empire. This document was used by later popes in their political quarrels with emperors and kings before being exposed as fake in the 1400s by Lorenzo Valla.

1550

The birth of Henri, Duc de Guise.

Guise was the leader of the ultra-Catholic faction during that phase of the French Religious Wars known as The War of the Three Henrys, in which Guise battled the centrist monarch Henri III and the Protestant leader Henri de Navarre. Guise, who had urged the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French Huguenots, was assassinated by Henri III in 1588.

1561

Death of Menno Simons.

Simons (1496-1561) was a Dutch Catholic priest who converted to Anabaptism in 1536 after the death of his brother Pieter who had been a follower of the radical Münsterites. Simons rejected the violent path that his brother and other Anabaptists had taken, preaching a pacifist message of separation from the world and adult believer baptism. Many Anabaptist denominations sprang up following his teachings.

1521

The Diet of Worms opens.

Th religious turmoil begun by Martin Luther’s posting of his 95 Theses in 1517 reached a climax when the German parliament (Diet) met in the town of Worms. Luther’s defenders had demanded that he be tried only in a German setting and so he was summoned to meet the emperor Charles V and representatives of the Church and nation. His defiance of these authorities would result in his outlawing and the beginnings of a separate religious movement that later in the decade would come to be known as Protestantism.

1547

Henry VIII dies.

The death of the king who had pulled the Church of England from obedience to the pope meant the succession of young Edward VI who, along with his closest advisers, were committed to a deeper reformation of that church along Protestant lines. Within six years England will have a new theology, married clergy, ceremonies in English, and an English prayer book but the population will remain split between Catholic supporters, those content with the new order, and those who wanted further reform. These divisions will continue for decades more.

1962

The birth of a prosperity preacher.

Few clergymen have been as aptly named as Creflo Dollar, a clergyman who ended up boasting the ownership of two Rolls-Royce automobiles, multiple multi-million dollar residences and a private jet. Born in Georgia, he began his ministry in 1986 in a school auditorium with only 8 people in the congregation. Preaching the message that God wishes his followers to be be wealthy and healthy, Creflo succeeded in creating a church of 30,000 members, satellite churches across America and an international organization, World Changers Church. His television program is broadcast around the globe. Dollar’s wife Taffi is co-pastor and is developing an outreach to women in the sex trade.

1077

In one of the most famous confrontations in medieval history Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV kneels before Pope Gregory VII in the snow at Canossa. A quarrel over whether secular powers could appoint church leaders had resulted in open war between emperor and pope. Gregory excommunicated Henry and Henry nominated a rival pope. The excommunication cut away much of Henry’s support and he was forced at Canossa to beg for forgiveness and reinstatement into the Church. This the pope granted but soon Henry rebelled again. Gregory would eventually be driven from Rome. His last words were “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile.”

1366

Death of Henry Suso (b. 1295) was a Dominican monk and mystic. For a period in his life he submitted himself to rigorous mortification of the flesh, wearing underwear studded with brass nails and sleeping on a cross of protruding needles. He later abandoned these as a distraction. Lovers of Christmas carols will know him as the composer of “In Dulci Jubilo“, translated as “Good Christian Men Rejoice”. Suso learned the tune from a dream in which angels visited him and led him in a round dance.

1533

Henry VIII secretly marries Anne Boleyn. Henry had for years sought to rid himself of his barren wife Katherine of Aragon and marry a woman who could provide him with a legitimate male heir. When his mistress Anne Boleyn became pregnant, it forced Henry’s hand. He wed her, though his union with Katherine had not been ended. This was regularized later by his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who ruled that the marriage to Katherine was invalid and the Boleyn marriage lawful. The ensuing legal and religious brouhaha would result in the pulling out of the Church of England from obedience to the pope and the eventual formation of the Anglican Church.

1944

Florence Li Tim-Oi becomes the world’s first female Anglican priest. The Japanese invasion of China had created a crisis for Christians and Christian missionaries in China. Because it was impossible to get a male priest to minister to the Anglicans of Portuguese colony of Macau on the coast of China, Bishop Ronald Hall of Hong Kong ordained Florence Li Tim-Oi. Her ordination was controversial; it would be decades before any church in the Anglican communion would ordain women and her appointment was opposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury when he learned of it. In 1971, however, she was recognized as an Anglican priest. Today The Li Tim-Oi Foundation exists to empower Christian women as agents of change. It provides grants to suitable candidates in the Two-Thirds World to train for Christian mission and ministry. She died in Toronto in 1982.

1918

Birth of Oral Roberts

Oral Roberts (1918-2009) was one of America’s most successful televangelists. Born into a poor Oklahoma family, he claimed that at the age of 17 he was miraculously healed of tuberculosis and stuttering by God while on his way to a revival meeting. God, he said, spoke to him, saying “Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take My healing power to your generation. You are to build Me a university based on My authority and on the Holy Spirit.”

Roberts dropped out of university before graduating and began a career as an itinerant faith healer, holding services in a large tent. By the late 1940s he had his own radio show and in 1954 he began a television ministry. He had by this time adopted a form of what would become known as the “prosperity gospel”, the belief that God wished all Christians to thrive physically and financially as well as spiritually. Part of the secret to this prosperity was “seed-faith” giving to the church, believing that this money would come back multiplied by God. He founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, Oral Roberts University, and the City of Faith and Medical Research Center, which opened in 1981, offering both prayer and medical healing for physical ailments. At its peak his various organizations employed thousands and had annual revenue of over $100,000,000. So attractive and successful was he that the United Methodist Church, a mainline denomination which felt itself in need of spiritual regeneration, recruited him to serve as one of their ministers.

Yet in the 1980s when a number of scandals rocked the world of televangelism and shaky finances plagued his cherished medical center, Oral Roberts resorted to extreme fundraising techniques. In January 1987, he announced on television that Lord had told him that unless $8,000,000 was soon raised God would “take him home.” (With the help of an extended deadline, this sum was raised.)

His biography on the oralroberts.com website claims that Roberts wrote 130 books, conducted 300 healing crusades, laying hands on over two million people and performed many miracles. After his death in 2009 his work was carried on by his son Richard.

1549

The First Act of Uniformity sets the course for the Anglican Church.

When Henry VIII withdrew the Church of England from the authority of the pope, its theology and ceremonial remained visibly Catholic. His successor, the boy-king Edward VI, wished the Church to become authentically part of the new reform movement. He would import Protestant preachers and university lecturers from the Continent, evict Catholic bishops from their sees and replace them with reformers, end clerical celibacy and finish the destruction of the monastic system.

On January 21, 1549 Parliament passed “An Acte for the unyformytie of Service and Admynistracion of the Sacramentes throughout the Realme”. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had overseen the preparation of a Book of Common Prayer and the new Act commanded that all “ministers in any cathedral or parish church or other place within this realm of England, Wales, Calais, and the marches of the same, or other the king’s dominions, shall, from and after the feast of Pentecost next coming, be bound to say and use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord’s Supper, commonly called the Mass, and administration of each of the sacraments, and all their common and open prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book, and none other or otherwise.”

Many Protestants complained that this new order of things was not reformed enough: its use of words concerning the Eucharist might be interpreted in a Catholic way. Many Catholics, however, were furious at the abolition of the Latin Mass and parts of the country rose up in rebellion at the new liturgy. In the west of England, Cornishmen called for a return to Henrician Catholicism with the battle cry “Kill all the gentlemen and we will have the Six Articles up again, and ceremonies as they were in King Henry’s time.” The rising was put down by the government’s army of foreign mercenaries.

In 1552 a new prayer book, clearly more Protestant, replaced the 1549 version.

250

Beginning of the Decian persecution.

Christians had been frequently the subject of hostile acts by the Roman state: the persecutions by Nero, Domitian and Pliny the Younger kept Christianity an underground movement. However, these decrees tended to be local and sporadic, not empire-wide. It was not until the accession of Decius in 249 that the notion of a national test for religious loyalty was conceived. The mid-third century was a time of crisis for the Roman Empire and Decius believed that a wholesale assertion of loyalty to the old gods would serve to unify and revitalize the state. In 250 he mandated that all citizens (with the exception of Jews) be required to sacrifice to the pagan pantheon and receive and official certification recording this. Though it appears that Decius was not aiming specifically at the Christian community the effect on it was profound. Its leadership either fled, apostatized or faced martyrdom. On this day Pope Fabian was executed.

1569

Death of a Bible translator.

Miles Coverdale (1488-1569) was an English Roman Catholic priest who became influenced by the religious Reform movement in the 1520s. He spent many years in exile on the Continent involved in the production of an English translation of the Bible, a project for which William Tyndale had been arrested and executed for in 1536. Parts of his work appeared in the clandestine “Matthew Bible” of 1537 but his triumph was the production of the 1540 “Great Bible” authorized by the English government which commanded each parish purchase “one book of the bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it.”

During the Protestant reign of Edward VI Coverdale was named Bishop of Exeter but when Mary I came to the throne in 1553 he was expelled and fled to the Continent for refuge. On the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 he returned to England but was denied a bishopric, most likely because of his Puritan leanings.

St Antony’s Day

As one of the very first hermit monks, the example of St Antony (251-356) was enormously important in the history Christian  monasticism. Butler’s Book of Saints has this to say:

ST. ANTONY was born in the year 251, in Upper Egypt. Hearing at Mass the words, “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,” he gave away all his vast possessions. He then begged an aged hermit to teach him the spiritual life. He also visited various solitaries, copying in himself the principal virtue of each. To serve God more perfectly, Antony entered the desert and immured himself in a ruin, building up the door so that none could enter. Here the devils assaulted him most furiously, appearing as various monsters, and even wounding him severely; but his courage never failed, and he overcame them all by confidence in God and by the sign of the cross. One night, whilst Antony was in his solitude, many devils scourged him so terribly that he lay as if dead. A friend found him thus, and believing him dead carried him home. But when Antony came to himself he persuaded his friend to carry him, in spite of his wounds, back to his solitude. Here, prostrate from weakness, he defied the devils, saying, “I fear you not; you cannot separate me from the love of Christ.” After more vain assaults the devils fled, and Christ appeared to Antony in glory. His only food was bread and water, which he never tasted before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, three, or four days. He wore sackcloth and sheepskin, and he often knelt in prayer from sunset to sunrise. Many souls flocked to him for advice, and after twenty years of solitude he consented to guide them in holiness—thus founding the first monastery. His numerous miracles attracted such multitudes that he fled again into solitude, where he lived by manual labor. He expired peacefully at a very advanced age. St. Athanasius, his biographer, says that the mere knowledge of how St. Antony lived is a good guide to virtue.