This week in persecuted church history (November 8-14)

Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
Hebrews 13:7b (ESV)

November 8

• 1567: Four Anabaptist believers, Jacques Mesdagh, Willem Aerts, Joos Kasteel, and Karel are burned to death at Kortrijck in Flanders because of their convictions.
• 2004: Three people are killed and forty injured after coordinated car bombs detonate outside two Iraqi churches. Around 6:30 p.m. a car bomb exploded outside St. George's Catholic Church in southern Baghdad. Minutes later, another car bomb damaged St. Matthew's Church. There were no services at the churches at the time, and the casualties are reported to be residents of nearby houses.
• 2005: Two Christian high school girls are shot at point blank at 7:45 p.m. near the Pentecostal church they attend. Ivone (last name unknown) and (Yuli) Siti Nuraini, both 17 years old, were shot by men on a motorcycle in the Gatot Subroto area of Poso. Ivone was shot in the left jaw, while Yuli was wounded in the neck.

November 9

• 1549: Jacob Claess is burned to death in Amsterdam for “joined the doctrine, sect and heresies of the Anabaptists, having been rebaptized, and holding pernicious views in regard to the sacraments of the holy church, contrary to the holy Christian faith, the ordinances of the holy Christian church, and the written laws and decrees of his Imperial Majesty our gracious lord; and, moreover, obstinately persists in his errors and heresy, notwithstanding the instruction which has been given him concerning the true faith.:
• 1559: Andries Langedul, Mattheus Pottebacker,and Lauwerens van der Leyenare are beheaded in prison in Antwerp because they were caught preaching and reading the Bible.

November 10

• 1483: Martin Luther is born in Eisleben, Germany
• 2003: Turkmenistan passes a law making all unregistered religious activity illegal. Penalties for breaking the law include up to one year of "corrective labour." The only religious communities who had been able to be registered are Sunni Muslims and the Russian Orthodox Church.

November 11

• 397 (traditional date): Martin of Tours, a bishop responsible for the evangelization of Gaul, dies.
• 1620: Forty-one Puritan separatists arrive in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They had hoped to settle further south, but as William Bradford wrote in his journal on December 19, "We could not now take much time for further search . . . our victuals being much spent, especially our beer."
• 1793: William Carey and his family arrive in Calcutta, India as pioneer missionaries.

November 12

• 655: Pope Martin dies of starvation and sickness after being banished to present-day Crimea at the order of the Byzantine emperor because of his opposition to eastern Orthodox teaching on the nature of Christ.
• 1564: Two sisters, Prijntgen Maelbouts and Martijntgen Maelbouts, are beheaded at Ghent in Flanders for having left the Roman Catholic church and become anabaptists.
• 1660: John Bunyan is arrested for unlicensed preaching and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, he penned Pilgrim's Progess and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the greatest Puritan spiritual autobiography
• 2004: After a four-hour trial, six Mennonite workers are convicted of "resisting officers of the law while doing their duty" and sentenced to prison. Pastor Quang, the general secretary of the Mennonite Church in Vietnam and a human rights activist, receives a three-year sentence. The other five workers receive sentences ranging from nine months to two years in prison. Apart from seven family members, all observers, including a representative from the Canadian Consulate, were refused entry into the courthouse.
• 2008: Two sisters are killed and their mother wounded by a gang of teenaged assailants in Mosul, Iraq. The gunmen shot one of the sisters as she was waiting for a bus outside of her house. They then stormed into her home and killed her sister and injured her mother. A bomb placed by the assailants at the entrance of the house detonated as the police arrived on the scene, injuring several officers. The mother later dies from her injuries.

November 13

• 307: A young Christian women named Ennathas is horribly tortured and finally burned alive in Scythopolis in Palestine.
• 2005: A public school teacher in Saudi Arabia is sentenced to forty months in prison and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after he discussed the Bible and allegedly praised Jews. The Al-Madina newspaper that Mohammad al-Harbi was taken to court by his colleagues and students where he was accused of, and charged with, promoting a "dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer."

November 14

• 2006: Nine families from the Bodo tribe in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, India are forced from their homes for converting to Christianity.

Prayer: “Grant that we, who now remember these before thee, may likewise so bear witness unto thee in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” – taken from The Book of Common Prayer, Canada (1962)