First Lady of the Reformation: Katherina Von Borla Dies This Day in Christian History
A Devotional from Church History:
Please enjoy The Gospel as found in the Christian History Institute’s Daily email reminder of what has come down to us from Church History. This is a service of the https://www.invertedchristian.com/ A ministry of The Duke Consulting Group drrogerdduke.com
Sunday, December 20 - Daily Story Internet Source: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/today
Fighting for Life, Katharina von Bora Luther Clung to Christ
KATHERINA VON BORA’S LIFE was one of hard work and solid virtue. When she was a young girl, her father placed her in a German convent following his remarriage. She heard Luther’s teachings in her early twenties and accepted his doctrine of justification by faith alone. With some other nuns she contacted the reformer, requesting help to escape the convent. Luther arranged for a delivery-man to smuggle the women out in empty fish barrels.
Luther asked the families of the young women to take them back. When they proved unwilling, he found husbands for all of them. However, he was not able to find a place for Katie. Eventually he proposed to her and married her the same day.
They seem to have been a happy couple. Her hard work and practical domestic skills (budgeting, raising livestock, and brewing beer) fed and clothed them, their children, several orphans, and the many students who boarded with them.
After Luther’s death, Katie reared their younger children alone for six years. Elector John Frederick, the ruler of Saxony, set up a small trust fund and helped her purchase a farm near Wittenberg. However, her land was taxed unmercifully by contending armies during the Schmalkaldic War, leaving her in crushing poverty. As a result, she had to flee. Her animals were confiscated, and her house burned to the ground. After peace was restored, Katie borrowed a thousand gulden to rebuild. To repay her loan, she took student boarders.
When plague broke out in Wittenberg in 1522, the university staff and students moved to Torgau, a place less affected by the disease. With her boarders gone, Katherina was again in dire financial straits. She decided to follow the university, but her decision proved catastrophic. At the end of the sixty mile trip, not far from the gate of Torgau, her horses bolted and she had to leap from the wagon into a lake. She was lifted from the water severely bruised. Friends carried her into the city. Although she fought for life for three months, the pain and hardships of her later years sealed her inevitable end. Her last recorded words were, “I will cling to my Lord Christ as a burr on a coat.” On this day, 20 December 1552 she died. Next day, the entire university turned out for her funeral.
—Dan Graves
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Other Notable Events
1326
?Death of Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. He had moved his see from Vladimir to Moscow the year before. Later he will be proclaimed a patron saint of Moscow.
1560
The First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland meets in Edinburgh. Its purpose is, “To consult upon those things which are to forward God’s glory and the well-being of His Kirk.”
1803
Death at Newport, Rhode Island, of theologian Samuel Hopkins who had modified Calvinism. He had also been one of the first clergymen in America to free his slaves and denounce the system of slavery.
1846
William Walsham Howe is ordained a deacon in the Church of England. He will go on to become a notable bishop and hymn writer.
1877
As Ahmed Fahmi, a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, leaves the Presbyterian mission compound in Cairo, Egypt, where he has been teaching Arabic to missionaries, he is kidnapped by his family. He will be held for five weeks. Afterward he studies in Scotland and becomes a missionary to China.
1908
Death of Father John of Kronstadt (John Sergiev), a Russian Orthodox priest greatly beloved for his charity and wisdom. “The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavours to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant.”
1909
William Temple, who will become Archbishop of Canterbury, is made deacon of Canterbury Cathedral. He is an advocate of the common man and active in social issues but still unsure of the doctrine of the resurrection.
1934
Death in New York City of Sarah “Adelaide” Addison Pollard, an evangelistic worker and missionary to Africa, noted for her hymn “Have Thine Own Way Lord,” written when her missionary plans were stymied. She dies of a ruptured appendix.