Browsing: Religion

A Brief History Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, October 7th was skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain in 1582. Digging Deeper Our calendar has changed a number of times in history and with those changes came the skipping and in some cases outright elimination of certain days of the year.  October 7, 1582 was one such date that does not exist in several countries’ history.  The omission of this particular date came with one of history’s most significant updates to the calendar most widely used in the world today: the Gregorian calendar. Prior to 1582, people…

A Brief History On October 2, 1187, one of history’s most significant sieges ended: The Siege of Jerusalem in which Saladin captured Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule. Digging Deeper Jerusalem must hold some kind of record for the number of times a city has been besieged or at least sought after by so many different people over such a long expanse of history. Long before the Crusades, the originally Hebrew city had been besieged by Egyptians in 925 B.C., Assyrians in 701 B.C., Babylonians in 597 B.C. and again in 587 B.C., Romans in 63 B.C., Herodians in…

A Brief History On September 28, 235 A.D., Pope Pontian became the first pope to resign his office, only to live out his days exiled to the mines of Sardinia! Digging Deeper When Pope Benedict XVI resigned his papacy in 2013, he was the first pope to do so since 1415.  In fact, he was one of only a handful of popes to ever resign.  Out of the 266 popes who have led Roman Catholicism, only six have ever abdicated.  Pope Emeritus Benedict actually retains various aspects of his former office and probably lives under better conditions than many people…

A Brief History On this day, September 25th, Catholics remember the death of Spanish Saint Fermin, the first bishop of Pamplona, in 303 A.D…and the miracles that followed! Digging Deeper Saint Fermin is mostly associated with the well-known “Running of the Bulls”, which actually occurs as part of a seven day festival in honor of the saint.  Yet, his actual martyrdom has nothing to do with bulls chasing people! Saint Fermin lived during the Roman Empire’s transition period from the persecutions of Christians by Emperor Diocletian before the toleration of Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great.  As such, Fermin converted…

A Brief History On this day, September 23, 1968, a man eventually canonized as a saint passed away…after having apparently endured the stigmata for several years! Digging Deeper Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (May 25, 1887 – September 23, 1968), a Catholic priest from Italy, was canonized as a saint by Pope John Paul II the Great in 2002, but his saintly life began over  a century earlier… Saint Pio claimed that he began his devotion to God from the young age of just five!  His mother claimed that the young Pio could see and speak with both Jesus and the Virgin…