50 Fun Facts About Church History

Which fourth-century bishop of Myra, famed for secret gift-giving, inspired the legend of Santa Claus?

Saint Nicholas is said to have dropped a sack of gold through a window on three nights so that a poor man's three daughters would each have a dowry.

Which English king, once named Defender of the Faith by a pope, made himself head of the Church of England?

Henry VIII won the papal title in 1521 for a book defending the seven sacraments, then broke with Rome in the 1530s when the pope would not annul his first marriage.

Which German monk translated the New Testament while hiding at Wartburg Castle disguised as a knight?

Martin Luther lived at the castle under the name Junker Jörg for about ten months after his excommunication, and finished the translation from Greek in roughly ten weeks.

Which missionary to Ireland first arrived there as a teenage slave after being seized by pirates?

Saint Patrick spent six years as a herder before escaping home to Britain, then went back by choice to preach to the people who had enslaved him.

Which Roman emperor blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, according to Tacitus?

Nero needed someone else to carry the blame for the blaze, and the already unpopular Christians of the city were arrested and killed in the empire's first persecution of the faith.

Which astronomer was tried by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 and spent his final years under house arrest?

Galileo Galilei was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" for defending a Sun-centred universe, and his books were banned along with the sentence.

Which Frankish king was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day in 800?

Charlemagne became the first emperor in western Europe in more than 300 years, which set him at odds with the Byzantine emperors in the East.

Which Italian friar is credited with staging the first live nativity scene, at Greccio in 1223?

Francis of Assisi had been shown the grotto of the Nativity on a visit to the Holy Land, and re-created it in a cave so that villagers could picture the first Christmas.

Which former slave-ship captain became an English clergyman and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace?

John Newton turned to faith when his ship nearly sank in a storm off Ireland in 1748, yet he gave up the slave trade only years later, before campaigning for its abolition.

Which fifth-century Syrian monk became famous for living for decades on top of a pillar near Aleppo?

Simeon Stylites climbed up to escape the crowds who came for his prayers, but the pillar drew even more pilgrims and sightseers than before.

Which Roman emperor reportedly saw a vision promising victory before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge?

Constantine had his soldiers mark their shields with a Christian sign, won when his rival drowned in the Tiber, and became the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.

Which early bishop described stealing pears as a boy in his autobiography, the Confessions?

Augustine of Hippo used the theft to ask why people do wrong for its own sake, in a book often called the first Western autobiography.

Which scholar, often painted with a lion, translated the Bible into the Latin version called the Vulgate?

Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus I and finished the work in Bethlehem, where he lived as an ascetic for 34 years; legend says he tamed the lion by healing its paw.

Which bishop of Alexandria was exiled five times for opposing Arianism in the fourth century?

Athanasius spent 17 years in exile under four different emperors, and his refusal to give way earned him the title Father of Orthodoxy.

Which bishop of Caesarea is called the Father of Church History for his Ecclesiastical History?

Eusebius quoted earlier Christian writings at such length that his narrative, running from the apostles to his own day, preserves material found nowhere else.

Which bishop of Smyrna, by tradition a disciple of the apostle John, was martyred at the stake around 155?

Polycarp, the story goes, was stabbed when the flames failed to consume him; it is one of the earliest accounts of a Christian martyrdom outside the New Testament.

Which writer from Carthage is the first known to have used the Latin word for Trinity?

Tertullian was the first theologian to write in Latin rather than Greek, which is why he has been called the father of Latin Christianity.

Which Roman emperor launched the Great Persecution of 303, the last and harshest against Christians?

Diocletian ordered churches razed and scriptures burned across the empire, yet within a decade Christianity had been made legal.

Which agreement between two Roman emperors in 313 gave Christians legal freedom to worship?

The Edict of Milan went further than toleration: it ordered confiscated meeting places and other property to be handed back to Christians without charge.

Which symbol did early Christians adopt because its Greek name, ichthys, spells out a title of Jesus?

A fish worked as an acrostic: the five Greek letters of the word are the initials of the phrase meaning Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour.

Which sixth-century Italian abbot founded Monte Cassino and wrote a Rule that shaped Western monastic life?

Benedict of Nursia wrote with such balance and moderation that most religious communities founded in the Middle Ages adopted his Rule.

Which pope sent monks to convert the Anglo-Saxons and later had a style of church chant named after him?

Gregory I is said to have been moved by the sight of Anglo-Saxon slaves on sale in Rome; the chant was credited to him only some three centuries after his death.

Which English monk of Jarrow helped popularise counting years from the birth of Christ, the AD system?

Bede earned the title Father of English History for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and his way of dating became standard across medieval Europe.

Which English missionary, called the Apostle to the Germans, is said to have chopped down a sacred oak?

Boniface felled the tree, sacred to the thunder god Donar, in what is now Hesse around 723; three decades later he was killed on a mission to Frisia.

Which two brothers from Thessalonica devised the first alphabet for the Slavs in the ninth century?

Cyril and Methodius created the Glagolitic script so that scripture and worship could be put into Slavonic; its descendant, Cyrillic, is still used by many languages.

On the altar of which great Byzantine church did papal envoys lay a bull of excommunication in 1054?

Hagia Sophia had been prepared for worship when the envoys walked in; the patriarch excommunicated them in return, a breach remembered as the start of the East-West Schism.

Which pope's speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 launched the First Crusade?

Urban II was answering a Byzantine emperor's plea for military help against the Seljuk Turks, and the call to arms led in the end to the capture of Jerusalem.

Which theologian, locked up by his family to stop him becoming a friar, wrote the Summa Theologica?

Thomas Aquinas was held for almost a year in the family castles, passed the time tutoring his sisters, and joined the Dominicans anyway; his great Summa was left unfinished.

To which city in present-day France did the popes move their court in 1309, staying for 67 years?

Avignon housed seven popes in a row, all of them French, and critics called the long absence from Rome the Babylonian captivity of the papacy.

In which French city was Joan of Arc tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431?

Rouen is also where a church retrial overturned the verdict in 1456, finding it tainted by deceit and procedural errors; she was made a saint in 1920.

Which Oxford theologian, called the morning star of the Reformation, inspired the Lollards?

John Wycliffe had been dead for three decades when the Council of Constance condemned him; bones taken from his grave were burned and the ashes thrown into the River Swift.

Which Czech reformer was burned at the stake in 1415 after travelling to the Council of Constance?

Jan Hus arrived under a promise of safe conduct but was soon arrested; after his death his followers defeated five papal crusades in a row.

Which Mainz craftsman printed the first major European book made with movable type, a Latin Bible?

Johannes Gutenberg had pages on show in Frankfurt by 1455, where a future pope saw them; of fewer than 200 copies printed, 49 survive at least in large part.

The sale of which church pardons by the friar Johann Tetzel provoked the Ninety-five Theses of 1517?

Indulgences promised relief from the punishments of purgatory, and Tetzel's sales were billed as funding the new St Peter's Basilica in Rome, though half the money went to pay off an archbishop's debts.

Which French lawyer turned reformer made Geneva a Protestant stronghold and wrote the Institutes?

John Calvin fled violence against Protestants in France, published the first edition of his Institutes in Basel in 1536, and was recruited to Geneva that same year.

Which Zurich pastor sparked the Swiss Reformation in 1522 by defending the eating of sausages during Lent?

Huldrych Zwingli did not eat the sausages himself, but when the printer who served them to his workers was arrested, he preached that the Bible does not forbid meat in Lent.

Which translator of the first printed English New Testament was strangled and burned near Brussels in 1536?

William Tyndale worked straight from Greek and Hebrew, and the scholars who made the 1611 King James Version drew extensively on his wording.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury compiled the first Book of Common Prayer and was burned at Oxford in 1556?

Thomas Cranmer had signed recantations in prison, so at the stake he thrust his right hand into the heart of the fire first, calling it unworthy.

Which Scottish reformer, once a prisoner in French galleys, is regarded as the founder of Presbyterianism?

John Knox spent 19 months as a galley prisoner after a castle garrison he served as chaplain was captured, then helped write the new church's confession of faith.

Which Spanish soldier turned to religion after a cannonball shattered his leg, then founded the Jesuits?

Ignatius of Loyola asked for tales of chivalry to pass his recovery, but the castle held only lives of Christ and the saints, and reading them changed his course.

Which founder of Methodism traced his spiritual turning point to a 1738 meeting in Aldersgate Street?

John Wesley went to the meeting unwillingly, yet it transformed his ministry; barred from many parish pulpits, he took to travelling widely and preaching outdoors.

Which German pastor, author of The Cost of Discipleship, was hanged at Flossenbürg in April 1945?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer reached the safety of New York in 1939 but sailed home within weeks, and was executed about a month before the war in Europe ended.

Which New England preacher delivered the 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?

Jonathan Edwards helped shape the First Great Awakening, and died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after taking up the presidency of the college at Princeton.

Which English shoemaker turned Baptist missionary to India is known as the father of modern missions?

William Carey translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit and several other languages at Serampore, and campaigned to end the burning of widows.

Which Los Angeles street gave its name to the 1906 revival that spread Pentecostalism around the world?

Azusa Street meetings were led by William J. Seymour, a Black preacher who had been barred from the church that invited him to the city after a single Sunday.

Which pope, expected to be a mere caretaker, surprised the Church by calling the Second Vatican Council?

John XXIII was elected at 76 as a presumed stop-gap, yet he announced the council within three months; he did not live to see it finished.

Which northern Italian city hosted the 1545–1563 council that shaped the Catholic reply to Protestantism?

Trent lay within the Holy Roman Empire, and the council there met in three separate periods; no Catholic ecumenical council since has been held outside Rome.

Which pope's corpse was dug up, propped on a throne and put on trial at the Cadaver Synod of 897?

Formosus had been dead for about nine months; a deacon answered for him, he was found guilty, and the body was later weighted and thrown into the Tiber.

Which Latin word, added to the creed by Western churches, became a lasting dispute with the Orthodox East?

Filioque means "and the Son": it made the creed say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, wording a Spanish council inserted in 589 and Rome adopted in 1014.

Which movement in the eighth-century Byzantine Empire saw emperors ban and destroy religious images?

Iconoclasm, from the Greek for breaking images, is traditionally traced to a ban by the emperor Leo the Isaurian, and it returned for a second wave in the ninth century.