The icon of Our Lady of Kazan (above), a renowned 13th century Eastern Orthodox image of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child, was rediscovered, according to legend, today in 1579. The icon, which had been brought to Kazan from Constantinople, had vanished after a series of great fires destroyed the city. But then Matrona, a nine year-old girl, had a dream that it was hidden in the burnt-out wreckage of a house. When the Archbishop of Kazan refused to take her seriously, Matrona and her mother dug up the icon themselves. Our Lady of Kazan is now displayed in a cathedral built over the place where it was discovered.
Jonathan Edwards, the slave-owning American philosopher and theologian, preached his famous sermon, ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’, today in 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut. The sermon delivered what was promised in the title, terrifying Edwards’ congregation with vivid and prolonged pictures of the wrath of God (52 mentions), with virtually nothing (2 mentions) of God’s love. His listeners, who heard Edwards repeatedly saying God hated them, cried out in horror as he spoke, calling, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ It is thought that the sermon was a catalyst in the first Great Awakening in America, a revival movement of the 1730s and 40s.
‘The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the Fire; he is of purer Eyes than to bear to have you in his Sight; you are ten thousand Times so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful venomous Serpent is in ours.’ Jonathan Edwards
Robert South, the witty and sharp tongued Church of England preacher, died today in 1716. Preaching a sermon before King Charles II, he noticed that the whole of his congregation was fast asleep. He stopped, and called three times to one of the sleepers, Lord Lauderdale, who woke up and then stood up. ‘My Lord,’ said South, ‘I am sorry to interrupt your repose, but I must beg that you will not snore quite so loud, lest you should awaken his majesty.’
Pope Gregory XV died today in 1623. He introduced papal election by secret ballot, and issued Omnipotentis Dei, a declaration which reduced the punishments inflicited on witches and magicians, and restricted the death penalty to those ‘proven’ to have murdered others with the help of the Devil. Which was a tiny step in the right direction.
It is St Procopius’s Day. According to early tradition, Procopius was a first-generation monk who ate bread only every third day and looked like a corpse, and was beheaded in the year 303 for refusing to offer incense to the Roman gods. According to less reliable medieval tradition, he was tortured with hooks, whips, coals and nails, and had every bone broken, but never paused in the stream of insults he poured on the judge. Christ came and healed his every wound, and the man who tried to behead him dropped dead. To force Procopius to offer incense to the gods, the judge put it in his hands with hot coals. Unsurprisingly this failed to make the saint betray his faith.
Image: St Petersburg Theological Academy under CC BY-ND 2.0