William Penn (above), who founded Pennsylvania as a haven of religious liberty, was born in the neighbourhood of Tower Hill, London, today in 1644. Imprisoned several times for his Quaker beliefs under the persecution of Charles II, who was intolerant of all religion that was not the Church of England, Penn was eventually given a charter by the King for Pennsylvania, where he established freedom of religion. The new territory soon attracted Mennonites, Jews, Lutherans, and other religious refugees from across Europe, after a publicity campaign by Penn.
It is the feast of St Paraskeva of the Balkans. Paraskeva, a female saint who lived in the 11th century, is treated like a rockstar in Moldavia, northern Romania, where the annual pilgrimage to her shrine in Iași at this time every year attracts hundreds of thousands of devotees.
The British rock’n’roller and groovy God-botherer Cliff Richard was born on this day in 1940 in Lucknow, India, and named Harry Webb. When he was 8, his family moved back to England; at 15, he was transfixed hearing Elvis singing on a car radio; and at 18 he was singing professionally. When he was converted in his 20s, he was probably the most interesting and high profile Christian in Britain.
‘One day I opened my heart and mind to Him and asked Him to come in. I was lying in bed, actually, and I just said to God, “Look, I know you’re out there. Would you mind moving in and taking over my life?” It was like being reborn and it has been my main preoccupation ever since.’ Cliff Richard, 1979
This afternoon in 1735, John and Charles Wesley boarded a ship, the Simmonds, at Gravesend in Kent, which was bound for the colony of Georgia in America. John had been called to become minister of a new parish in the town of Savannah, Georgia, founded just two years earlier. Onboard, they immediately fell in with a group of German Moravian Christians, a group which played a key role in their evangelical conversion three years later.
‘On Sunday, the weather being fair and calm, we had the Morning Service on quarter-deck. I now first preached extempore, and then administered the Lord’s Supper to six or seven communicants. A little flock. May God increase it!’ John Wesley, Journal, 17 October 1735
Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, ‘for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population’, today in 1964.
‘We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.‘ Martin Luther King, Nobel Lecture, 1964
It is the feast day of St Harold Godwinson, the Saxon King who died after he was shot in the eye at the Battle of Hastings, which was fought today in 1066. The Eastern Orthodox Church reckons Harold to be the last Orthodox king of England.
Thomas Kingo, the early Danish hymn writer, died today in 1703. He produced two collections of hymns in the 1670s and 80s, and many of his hymns are still loved and sung in Denmark, Norway and the Faroe Islands.
Like the golden sun ascending,
Breaking through the gloom of night,
On the earth his glory spending
So that darkness takes to flight,
Thus my Jesus from the grave
And Death’s dismal, dreadful cave
Rose triumphant Easter morning
At the early purple dawning.
Thomas Kingo, ‘Like the golden sun ascending’