Portal:Religion/On this day/December
On this day in December
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 1
- 1521 - Pope Leo X dies. (b. 1475)
- 1580 - Giovanni Morone, Italian cardinal, dies. (b. 1509)
- 1581 - Edmund Campion, English Jesuit (martyred), dies. (b. 1540)
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 2
- 1381 - John of Ruysbroeck, Flemish mystic, dies.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 3
- 1154 - Pope Anastasius IV dies.
- 1552 - St Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary to the East, dies. (b. 1506)
- 1815 - John Carroll (priest), first Roman Catholic archbishop in the U.S., dies. (b. 1735)
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 4
- 1110 - First Crusade: The Crusaders conquer Sidon.
- 1585 - John Cotton, American Puritan leader, born. (d. 1652)
- 2007 - Judaism: First day of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, at sundown.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 5
- 1484 - Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes, a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany and leads to one of the severest witchhunts in European history.
- 1590 - Niccolò Sfondrati becomes Pope Gregory XIV.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 6
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 7
- 1724 - Thorn Blood tribunal (de:Thorner Blutgericht), execution of Protestant who attacked and demolished Jesuit Church by Poland in Toruń (Thorn).
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 8
- 1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 9
- 1425 - The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
- 1531 - First supposed apparition of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Guadalupe) to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on Tepeyac Hill.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 10
- 1508 - The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice.
- 1520 - Martin Luther burns his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg's Elster Gate.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 11
- 1475 - Pope Leo X born. (d. 1521)
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 12
- 1098 - First Crusade: Massacre of Ma'arrat al-Numan - Crusaders breach the town's walls and massacre about 20,000 inhabitants. After finding themselves with insufficient food, they resort to cannibalism.
- 1531 - Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego in Mexico City.
- 2007 - Judaism: Last day of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, ends at sundown.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 13
- 1294 - Saint Celestine V abdicates the papacy after only five months; Celestine hoped to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.
- 1545 - Council of Trent begins.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 14
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 15
- 687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 16
- 1714 - George Whitefield, British-born Methodist leader, born. (d. 1770)
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 17
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 18
- 1352 - Innocent VI is elected Pope.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 19
- 1187 - Pope Clement III is elected.
- 1843 - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, is first published in England.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 20
- 1192 - Richard the Lion-Heart was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the crusade.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 21
- 1118 - Thomas Becket, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury, born. (d. 1170)
- 1596 - Petro Mohyla, Moldovan Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of Kiev and Galicia, born. (d. 1646)
- 1603 - Roger Williams, English theologian and colonist, born. (d. 1684)
- 1811 - Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, born. (d. 1882)
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 22
- 1894 - The Dreyfus affair begins, in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason, on antisemitic grounds.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 23
- 619 - Boniface V becomes Pope.
- 1823 - The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas) is published in the Sentinel.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 24
- 640 - John IV becomes Pope.
- 1294 - Pope Boniface VIII is elected Pope, replacing St. Celestine V, who had abdicated.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 25
- 1861 - Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Indian founder of Banaras Hindu University, born. (d. 1946)
- Christianity: Christmas, celebrates the Nativity of Jesus.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 26
- 1536 - Yi I, Korean Confucian scholar, born. (d. 1584)
- 1751 - Clement Hofbauer, Austrian missionary and saint, born. (d. 1820)
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 27
- 537 - The Hagia Sophia is completed.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 28
- 418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 29
- 1170 - Thomas Becket is slain in his own cathedral by knights eager to please Henry II of England.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 30
- 1906 - The All India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, which later laid down the foundations of Pakistan.
Portal:Religion/On this day/December 31
- 1229 - James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (nowadays Palma de Mallorca, Spain) thus consuming the Christian conquest of the island of Mallorca.
- 2006 - First day of Eid-ul-Adha, the Islamic "Festival of Sacrifice."