Pope Benedict XVI (pictured) resigned as pope today in 2013, something that hadn’t happened in 720 years. He gave his reasons as ‘lack of strength of mind and body’. He stopped wearing the red papal shoes, but didn’t give up the white robes. His successor, Pope Francis I, became pope two weeks later.
The city of Münster, having been taken over by Anabaptists, was besieged in 1534 by the local bishop (and his army). The siege lasted for 15 months, during which time, top Anabaptist Jan Beuckels ruled the ‘New Jerusalem’ of Münster as the reincarnated King David. When the city fell, the bishop killed almost the entire population.
John Wesley formally founded the Methodist Church today in 1784, having been organising his followers into unofficial congregations for over 40 years.
Martin Bucer, the German Protestant reformer, died today in 1551. He had been exiled to England in 1549, where he influenced a revision of the Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer. He was buried in Cambridge, but his remains were dug up and burned when the Catholic Queen Mary I came to the throne.
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