This week in Christian history: ‘Amazing Grace’ first sung, Robert Boyle's thunderstorm conversion experience
John Wycliffe suffers stroke – Dec. 28, 1384
This week marks the anniversary of when John Wycliffe, a Catholic priest whose English translation work on the Bible was considered the forerunner of the Protestant Reformation, suffered a severe stroke.
Wycliffe garnered controversy in his time for working on an English translation of the Bible, as the Catholic Church mandated at the time that the Bible could only be in Latin.
While at mass at a church in Lutterworth, England, Wycliffe suffered the second stroke of his life. The severity was such that he never recovered and died a few days later.
“His body was buried in Lutterworth churchward, where it remained until 1428 when, following the orders of the Council of Constance, it was dug up and burned. The ashes were scattered in the nearby River Swift,” wrote Richard Cavendish for History Today in 2015.
“Wycliffe’s belief that all Christians should learn the faith for themselves was that Scripture needed to be translated into their own languages. His most important achievement was the first complete English translation of the Bible, issued from 1382.”
Over a century later, many in the Protestant movement would refer to Wycliffe as “the Morning Star of the Reformation” for his influential theological work.
