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	This Week in Religion History The Peterborough Examiner March 29, 2008 http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=964089 March 30 In 1135, Moses Maimonides, the renowned medieval Jewish scholar, was born. Considered the foremost Talmudist of the Middle Ages, his most important writing was Guide to the Perplexed (1190), in which he tried to harmonize Rabbinic Judaism with the increasingly popular Aristotelianism of his day. In 1917, all imperial lands as well as lands belonging to monasteries were confiscated by the Russian provisional government. March 31 In 1492, Spain issued a royal edict advising Jews to either become Catholics, leave the country or be executed. In 1732, composer Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Austria. One of his greatest contribution to church music was his 1798 oratorio The Creation. In 1890, the Manitoba legislature passed an act abolishing Catholic public schools. In 1959, the Dalai Lama was granted political asylum in northern India after fleeing Chinese-occupied Tibet. In 1995, Carl Story, known as the father of bluegrass gospel, died in Greer, S.C., at age 78. He was among the first to merge the traditional rural sound of bluegrass with church music. In 2005, Terri Schiavo, 41, a severely brain-damaged woman who spent 15 years connected to a feeding tube in an epic legal and medical battle that went all the way to the White House and the U.S. Congress, died, 13 days after the tube was removed. Ten days earlier President Bush had signed an unprecedented bill passed by the Congress designed to prolong her life. April 1 In 1548, England's Parliament ordered the publication of the Book of Common Prayer. In 1564, All Fools' Day is said to have originated when King Charles IX of France changed the calendar. Prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the date was observed as New Year's Day by cultures as varied as the Roman and the Hindu. April 2 In 742, Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, was born. Pope Leo III crowned him emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day 800. During his reign, Charlemagne appointed and deposed bishops, directed a revision of the text of the Bible, instituted changes to the liturgy, set rules for life in the monasteries, and sent investigators to dismiss priests with insufficient learning or piety. In 1877, American evangelist Mordecai Ham was born. It was under Ham's preaching in the late 1930s that Billy Graham was led into a living faith. In 2005, Pope John Paul II died at the age of 84. April 3 In 1327, Marsilius of Padua and his copyist, John of Jandun, were forced to flee Paris for asylum in Bavaria after the Pope issued a bull denouncing them as "sons of perdition and fruits of malediction." In his book Defensor pacis, Marsilius had denounced the corruptions of the Roman church leadership and called for a radical reformation of the institution. In 1593, metaphysical poet George Herbert, known for his mastery of metrical form and allegory as well as his themes of Christian devotion, was born in Montgomery Castle, Wales. In 1897, German pianist and composer Johannes Brahms died at age 63. A devout Lutheran, he wrote extensively for the church, including his German Requiem which some critics consider to be the greatest major sacred choral work of the 19th century. In 1992, the Congregation of Christian Brothers formally apologized to victims of physical and sexual abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John's, N.L. The apology came nearly two decades after boys first complained of abuse. The congregation also ordered the 94-year-old building razed to the ground, with proceeds from the sale of the land to aid victims. April 4 In 397, St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, died. Known as the Father of Hymnody, he encouraged the singing of hymns, wrote several and codified the Ambrosian chant for the early church. In 1507, Martin Luther was ordained a priest in Erfurt, Germany. In 1541, Spanish theologian Ignatius of Loyola was elected the first general of the Jesuit order, or the Society of Jesus, which he had founded the previous year. In 1739, the first performance of Handel's Israel in Egypt was held in London at the King's Theatre in Haymarket. Second only to the Messiah in popularity, it tells the story of the Exodus from Egypt. In 1968, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tenn. The Baptist minister received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights work. Word of King's death set off riots in dozens of American cities. April 5 In 1614, in Virginia, Indian chief Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe. She was one of the first North American native converts to Christianity. In 2004, a firebomb damaged the library of United Talmud Torah, an old Jewish school in Montreal, in an anti-Semitic attack.
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