This week in persecuted church history (November 22-28)

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

November 22

• 1546: Hans Staudtach, Anthony Keyn, Blasius Beck and Leonhard Schneider are condemned to death in Vienna because of their refusal to renounce their faith and beheaded.
• 2005: Ghorban Tori, an Iranian convert to Christianity, is kidnapped from his home in Gonbad-e-Kavus. A few hours later, body is dumped outside of his home. The 50-year-old pastor of an independent house church had been stabbed to death.
• 2008: Refaat and Ibrahim Fawzy Abdo, Egyptian Christian brothers falsely accused of murdering a Muslim, are sent to the El Wadi El Gadid Detention Camp in an attempt to coerce them into confessing to the crime.

November 23

• 101: Clement, the bishop of Rome, is martyred.
• 1555: Digna Pieters, after being tortured by authorities in an attempt to force her to renounce her faith, is put into a bag and drowned in Dortrecht, Netherlands.
• 2003: Pastor Iyob and seven of his parishioners of the Kale Hiwot Church in the town of Mendefera, Eritrea are arrested and taken into custody simply because of their evangelical Christian faith.
• 2005: Sixteen nuns are injured by police as they protest plans to destroy a school building in Xian, China.  The building had been confiscated by the Chinese government during Mao's "Cultural Revolution," but should have been returned to the Catholic Church after policies changed in 1979.

November 24

• 1531: Johannes Oecolampadius, a leader in the Swiss Reformation, dies at 49. He sided with Ulrich Zwingli in disputing Martin Luther on the Lord's Supper and also helped Erasmus edit the New Testament in Greek.
• 1572: Scottish reformer John Knox dies in Edinburgh

November 25

• 311: Peter, the sixteenth bishop of Alexandria, is martyred by beheading by order of the emperor Diocletian
• 523: Hundreds of Christians, including women and children, are massacred in the city of Najran at the order of Dhu Nuwas, ruler of the Himyarite tribe in south Arabia.  Dhu Nuwas was a Judaizer who had sworn to wipe out Christianity in his kingdom.  When he captured the Christian city of Najran, he ordered the Christians to renounce their faith.  In an amazing display of courage and faithfulness, in the weeks that followed, thousands more were beheaded, tortured, and burned in a fruitless attempt to force the Christians to deny Christ.
• 2007: Two pastors, C.J. Joemon and C.J. Jojo, and another believer, G. Anil, are stripped, tied to a pole and beaten after a worship service at the Christ Vision Church is attacked by Hindu nationalists in the Hassan district of Karnataka, India.

November 26

• 2008: Salat Sekondo Mberwa, a Somali Christian who fled to a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya in 2005 after Muslims murdered a Christian relative, is shot by Muslims at approximately 6:00 p.m., when they broke into his residence in the camp and shot him in the shoulder as he tried to escape out a window. The assailants left him for dead. He was later discovered by his family.

November 27

• 1095: After nine days of sessions among clerics, Pope Urban II addresses the public to proclaim the First Crusade. The goals were to defend Eastern Christians from Muslim aggression, make pilgrimages to Jerusalem safer, and recapture the Holy Sepulcher. "God wills it! God wills it!" the crowd shouted in response
• 1560: Soetgen Van Den Houte and an other women named Martha are martyred in the city of Ghent, Flanders (in present day Belgium) after being severely mistreated while in prison for their faith.
• 1970: On a trip to the Philippines, Pope Paul VI is attacked by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest. Though the Vatican announced the pontiff was unhurt, he suffered a chest wound in the assault.
• 2005: As approximately thirty children gather in a home in Curug, Indonesia to study the Bible, a mob of Islamic militants descend upon the home and cause the children to scatter in panic.  The militants destroy guitars, a keyboard, an organ and a fan as well as several desks and chairs.  They force the teachers and children out of the house and then "seal" it with posters denouncing the Sunday school.

November 28

• 1628: John Bunyan is born in Elstow, Bedfordshire, England. He would spend much of his life in jail because of his preaching.
• 2006: A Moroccan court sentences a German tourist, Sadek Noshi Yassa (64) to six months in prison and a fine of 500 dirhams ($68 CAD) for trying to "shake the faith of a Muslim." Authorities allege that Yassa was distributing books and CDs about the Christian faith to young Muslims on the streets of Agadir.

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)