461: Tradition says St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, died. Patrick was born in Britain around 390 AD into an aristocratic family. When he was 16 he was kidnapped and taken to Ireland as a slave for seven years. During that period Patrick underwent a religious conversion and became a devoted Christian. After escaping from captivity, Patrick returned to his family and became a cleric. Patrick felt called to return to Ireland, which he did as an ordained bishop, and spent the rest of his life spreading Christianity throughout the land. As little else is known about Patrick’s life, many myths and legends have come to fill in his story.
1765: St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated for the first time in Canada, in Quebec City.
2000: About 924 members of Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a doomsday cult, committed suicide by locking themselves in their church and setting it on fire in Kanunga, Uganda.
2012: Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who led Egypt’s Christian minority for 40 years during a time of increasing tensions with Muslims, died. He was 88. He battling liver and lung problems for several years.
1314: 39 Knights Templar were burned at the stake in Paris. Created to protect pilgrims going to the Holy Land, the military order had grown wealthy after the Crusades. Perhaps because of jealousy, they were accused of sodomy, blasphemy, and heresy. Many scholars now consider them to have been innocent.
1999: In an ethically controversial case, a judge in Saskatoon ordered 13-year-old Tyrell Dueck of Martensville, Sask., to undergo chemotherapy and ruled that the boy must be isolated from his “loving yet misguided” parents to have his cancerous leg removed. Tyrell and his parents had refused chemotherapy and amputation, opting instead for herbal and alternative remedies. He died June 30, 1999.
1229: Having negotiated a treaty with Muslims for Christian access to Jerusalem, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II — a reluctant participant in the sixth crusade — crowned himself king at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. His treaty, however, was denounced by both faiths, and the Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem pronounced an interdict on the city. Frederick was excommunicated for making peace instead of war.
1263: French cardinal, Hugh of St. Cher, died. He is credited with compiling the first Bible concordance and with dividing the Old and New Testaments into chapters.
1987: U.S. televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as chairman of his PTL ministry amid a sex and money scandal involving Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary. Bakker was convicted in 1989 of bilking his followers and served five years in prison.
2010: Two thousand traditional Anglicans in Canada accepted Pope Benedict XVI’s invitation to join the Roman Catholic Church under an agreement that would allow them to keep their liturgy, have their own bishop but acknowledge the Pope’s supremacy.
2010: A new protocol released by the local Catholic Church asked everyone from parish priests to building caretakers in the Archdiocese of Halifax and the Diocese of Yarmouth to sign the nine-point Covenant of Care promising not to abuse, endanger or even be alone, in some cases, with people in their care. It came after highly publicized cases of alleged sexual abuse going back decades.
1455: When Guido di Pietro became a monk at Fiesole, he changed his name to Giovanni and became known as Giovanni da Fiesole. Italians called him Beato, Blessed One. But 14 years after his death, on this day, he was given the name by which he is best known: Fra Angelico, or angelic father. He gained renown as a masterful painter, first illuminating manuscripts and later creating altarpieces. Pope John Paul II beatified Fra Angelico in 1982. Thanks to him the Vatican possesses portraits of many of his contemporaries, including Thomas Aquinas. He’s considered one of the greatest artists of the medieval period.
2010: Pope Benedict XVI released a letter apologizing for years of physical and sexual abuse suffered by Irish children at the hands of Catholic priests.
2012: Pope Benedict XVI named Christian Lepine as the new archbishop for Montreal taking over from Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte, who held the post for 22 years at Canada’s second-largest diocese.
547: Italian monk Benedict, author of the Benedictine rule which established the pattern for European monastic life through the Middle Ages, died at Monte Cassino. In 1965, Pope Paul VI proclaimed him the patron saint of Europe.
1556: Thomas Cranmer, author of the Book of Common Prayer and the churchman who proposed a method by which Henry VIII could divorce Catherine of Aragon without dispensation from Rome, was burned at the stake by order of the Catholic queen, Mary I. Mary, Henry and Catherine’s daughter, attempted to restore Catholicism as England’s official religion.
1685: Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest and most influential composers in the Western world, was born in Eisenach, Germany. Bach was the master of baroque music, and composed works in almost every musical form known at the time. But during his lifetime, Bach was better known as an organist than as a composer. For decades after his death, his works were neglected. However, in the 19th century such romantic composers as Mendelssohn and Schumann recognized his genius. The bulk of Bach’s work is religious in nature. Among the best-known of his religious compositions are St. Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio. His best-known secular works include The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Brandenburg concertos.
1988: Dr. Patrick Steptoe, who pioneered the in-vitro fertilization technique that led to the birth of the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, died. Brown’s birth in 1978 made Steptoe and his partner Robert Edwards famous, but also led to a storm of criticism from religion leaders and others who denounced them for playing God.
2009: Two people were killed after deadly stampede broke out at a stadium hours before Pope Benedict XVI addressed young people in the Angolan capital of Luanda.
337: Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, died at age 47.
1638: Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was excommunicated from the Puritan church and expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for defying orthodoxy. Soon after emigrating from England, Hutchinson began organizing weekly meetings to discuss recent sermons and to express to her own theological views. Hutchinson’s belief that individual intuition was the route to reaching God and salvation, rather than the observance of institutionalized beliefs, drew the ire of much of the Puritan community. Her refusal to back down from her contrarian beliefs led to a trial and her expulsion along with a group of followers. Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop called her a “hell-spawned agent of destructive anarchy,” but Hutchinson is still considered a crusader for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and religious rights for women.
1818: Easter Sunday was on March 22, the earliest date it can occur. It will not fall on March 22 again until 2285.
1882: U.S. President Chester Alan Arthur signed a measure outlawing polygamy.
1997: Five people belonging to the Order of the Solar Temple cult were found dead in a burning house in St. Casimir, Que.
2004: Sheik Ahmed Yassin, 67, a quadriplegic preacher who founded the Islamic militant group Hamas in 1987, was killed by missiles fired from an Israeli helicopter as he left a mosque at daybreak in Gaza City.
752: Pope Stephen II was elected to succeed Pope Zacharias. However, Stephen died only two days later.
1540: Waltham Abbey in Essex became the last monastery in England to transfer its allegiance from the Roman Catholic Church to the newly established Church of England.
1743: George Frideric Handel’s oratorio, The Messiah, had its London premiere. The first performance of the work had taken place in Dublin the previous year. During the Hallelujah Chorus at the London performance, King George II rose excitedly to his feet. The audience followed suit and a tradition was born.
1956: Pakistan was declared an Islamic republic within the British Commonwealth.
1966: Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsay, met in the Sistine Chapel of Rome. They discussed renewing formal relations, severed in the 16th century, between their two churches. It was the first meeting of a pope and the head of the English church since 1397.
2009: South Africa barred the Dalai Lama from a peace conference in Johannesburg in the wake of heavy pressure from the Chinese government.
- With files from National Post