0753 - Death of St. Pirminius, first abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Reichenau (located in modern Germany). His name endures today as author of a book entitled "Scarapsus," which is the earliest known writing to contain the Apostles' Creed as it is worded in its present form.
1631 - English clergyman John Eliot, 27, first arrived in America, at Boston. He afterward became the first Protestant minister to devote himself to evangelization of the American Indian.
1784 - English clergyman Thomas Coke, 37, first arrived in America, at New York City. He was the first Methodist bishop to come to the New World.
1818 - Pliny Fisk, 26, set sail for Palestine. Ordained by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fisk became the first American missionary to journey to the Near East.
1925 - The Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance was organized at St. Louis, MO. It became the forerunner of a new denomination, established in 1932 as the Pentecostal Church, Inc.
© 1987-2011, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from
Almanac of the Christian Church
