Concordia Historical Institute

10/13/2026

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: On October 13, 1534, Paul III began his pontificate.

Pope Paul III was born Alessandro Farnese, of the influential Italian Farnese family. As a young priest, Alessandro was infamous for his debauchery, keeping a mistress and fathering at least four children. His personal life had cooled by the time he ascended to the papacy at age 66 after the death of Pope Clement VII. Paul III's papal career was defined by the Reformation: he oversaw the legitimization of Ignatius of Loyola's new order, the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), excommunicating Henry VIII for the second and final time, and laying the ground for much of the Counter-Reformation that followed after his death.

Luther loomed large in Paul's life, as is made evident by much of the art about him. Below is the 19th century Dutch painter Albrecht de Vriendt's portrait, "Pope Paul III in front of the Portrait of Luther" as well as a 16th century fresco of the Pope, featuring a cameo by Luther and Cardinal Cajetan (also seen as "Gaetani" or "Gaetanus")—see the final detailed image. While many people associate Pope Leo X as the pope of Martin Luther and the Reformation, it is worth noting that Luther (who only lived to be 62) lived through nine popes! Luther's theological and political legacy cast a long shadow over the papacy, a fact which many works of art highlight, works both contemporary to him and long posthumous.

10/09/2026

Your ticket to adventures in Lutheran history awaits — it's your membership at CHI!

Because of the support, encouragement, and prayers of our members, Concordia Historical Institute is able to offer research resources, relevant new scholarship, engaging events, memorable museum exhibits, accessible online content, and much, much more. Start your adventure in Lutheran history today:
https://concordiahistoricalinstitute.org/membership/

10/08/2026

In keeping with this week’s theme of English-speaking Lutheranism, check out this artifact from our collection: a sketch of the English Conference of 1872. The sketch is an artist’s (Wm. M. Lawson of Chicago) conception of the free conference that was held August 16-20, 1872, in Gravelton, Missouri. At this conference, the English Lutheran Conference of Missouri was organized, which would later become what is today the English District LCMS. This sketch appeared in The Lutheran Witness: English District Edition on August 12, 1947, in an article celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the free conference.

The following is from our installment of Pieces of Our Past for the sketch:

In the seventy-fifth anniversary article in 1947, Mrs. Belle Johnson, granddaughter of one of the charter members of Zion, was quoted recalling the German service during which Walther preached along with the sessions of the conference. Johnson was 82 at the time and had attended the conference as a child. She recounted the following:

When Walther preached he stood in the back of a buckboard wagon with a brush arbor over him for shade. This latter, I believe, was improvised by sympathetic souls who wanted to keep him as cool as possible. He preached in a Prince Albert coat and we were all gathered outside the old meeting house, because there was no room within and it was cooler outdoors. We children sat on oak slab benches laid across short logs and the men and women sat apart.

Excerpt from Fred C. Stein and H. William Lieske, “A Description of the Cradle of the English District, After Seventy-Five Years,” The Lutheran Witness: English District Edition 66 (12 August 1947).

10/07/2026

Today the LCMS commemorates Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, Lutheran pastor to America.

Heinrich Mühlenberg was born in Einbeck in Lower Saxony on September 6, 1711. He studied theology at the prestigious University of Göttingen, which has been home to a number of prominent professors and students across history, from Robert Oppenheimer to the Brothers Grimm and many more. Ordained in 1739, Muhlenberg served at an orphanage as an assistant minister. In 1742, at the director of the orphanage's recommendation, Muhlenberg accepted a call to serve the German immigrants of Pennsylvania. who were in need of a Lutheran pastor.

Muhlenberg arrived to a fledgling American Lutheran church desperately in need of clergy and leadership. He was pastor at Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe, Pennsylvania, today the oldest extant Lutheran church building in America (built in 1743, consecrated in 1745). He also helped organize existing Lutheran churches in the area and founded new parishes, and he formed the first permanent Lutheran synod in America: the Pennsylvania Ministerium. As we mentioned last week, colonial American Lutheranism developed before and independent of the Missouri Synod, as the Saxon immigrants who founded the LCMS would not arrive in America until nearly a hundred years later. The Pennsylvania Ministerium would eventually become a constituent part of the General Council in 1867, and was then absorbed into the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) in 1918. The ULCA joined other American Lutheran church bodies in 1962 to become the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), which, in turn, merged with yet more American Lutheran bodies to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1988.

During his forty-year career in Pennsylvania, Muhlenberg helped establish a common ecclesiastical constitution, liturgy, and hymnal for this Lutheran body. Henry Muhlenberg and his wife, Anna Maria Weiser, had eleven children, establishing a dynasty of Muhlenbergs who would go on to serve in prominent roles in American politics, academia, ministry, and military. This includes last week's feature, Peter Muhlenberg, who served in the American Revolutionary War. Henry Muhlenberg died on October 7, 1787—24 years before C.F.W. Walther was born, to put things into an LCMS perspective.

Prayer for the day:
Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd of Your people, we give You thanks for Your servant Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, who was faithful in the care and nurture of the flock entrusted to his care. So they may follow his example and the teaching of his holy life, give strength to pastors today who shepherd Your flock so that, by Your grace, Your people may grow into the fullness of life intended for them in paradise; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Treasury of Daily Prayer, p. 791)

10/06/2026

Many LCMS Lutherans today do not trace their family history through the Saxon German immigrants—and many Lutherans during the Reformation were not German. Patrick Hamilton is once such instance, a reminder that Lutheranism didn’t “go English” in the 20th century with the Missouri Synod’s adoption of the English language. Patrick Hamilton is as much a part of our inspiring treasury of Lutheran history as Martin Luther. Learn about Scotland’s Lutheran martyr in our online exhibit exploring Hamilton’s life and legacy.

https://concordiahistoricalinstitute.org/patrick-hamilton-martyr/

10/05/2026

YESTERDAY IN HISTORY: On October 4, 1535, English reformer Myles (or Miles) Coverdale published his translation of the Bible in English, the first complete printed English Bible. Coverdale sought with this project to combine both scholarly precision and devotional accessibility.
Coverdale’s concern for a Bible in the vernacular is not the only similarity he shared with Martin Luther. Like Luther, Coverdale was also an Augustinian friar early in life. Upon encountering and embracing Reformation theology at Cambridge, he fled England to avoid martyrdom in 1528; however, he was later welcomed back to England by Henry VIII’s government and encouraged to produce his Bible, at the time called The Great Bible. Coverdale’s Bible was influential on the later King James Version as well as the Book of Common Prayer through his beautifully translated psalter. Several phrases also entered the world through Coverdale, like “lovingkindness,” “tender mercies,” and “valley of the shadow of death.”
LCMS scholar William Dallmann produced a lovely biography of Coverdale, a copy of which we have in our collection. Dallmann was a prolific writer, writing on everything from English reformers to freemasonry to Seventh Day Adventists to congregational meetings. In fact, Dallmann gave a convention essay on Myles Coverdale at the 1921 English District convention in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

10/02/2026

Happy Friday! May we interest you in some Mission Ticklers?

A "Mission Tickler" is "a mission idea that's so good it makes you chuckle and put it some place for further reference. Or to discuss with a friend, Maybe pray about it. Inquire about it. Get in on it." These date from 1972, and feature a number of interesting and funny anecdotes, ranging from outreach to people working with racehorses to "Carney Ministry" ("Carneys are prizes themselves...prizes in the eyes of God who loves all people."), and more normal outreach projects, like Spanish-speaking missions or campus ministry. With bright colors, on-trend graphics, and bite-sized stories with a strong hook, they sure are eye-catching—enough to have caught the eye of our archivist when working through part of CHI's collection. We hope they brighten up your Friday, too!

10/01/2026

Here's a picture of a Lutheran wedding—although it may not be your typical one!

This photo is from our digitized collection of Japanese missionary photos. We don't have a date for this one, but we think it was taken sometime in the 1950s. Read the amazing story (taken from the written description on the back of the photo) of the groom below!

"Marriage of Mr. [Ryuichi] Igarashi, pillar of Kamo Lutheran Church. Mr. Igarashi, former Imperial Army soldier, three years in Siberian concentration camp, school-teacher, Russian interpreter, Japanese language teacher and interpreter to missionary, loyal servant of Jesus Christ. Congratulations! Missionary: [Richard] Poetter."

Explore more missionary photos from Japan and India in our digital collection, available here: https://chi.photoshelter.com

09/30/2026

Today we commemorate Jerome, Translator of Holy Scripture.

Jerome was born sometime between 342 and 347 in Stridon, in the Roman province Dalmatia. No one knows exactly where Stridon was located, but Dalmatia included what are now the modern Balkan states of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. He was a young convert to Christianity, and he was drawn to the ascetic life of the hermits. Jerome was close with a number of female ascetics and consecrated virgins, primarily women from prominent Roman families who, like Jerome, shunned the lavish excesses and debauchery common in pagan Rome. His association with women and his endorsement of often extreme ascetic practices made him a controversial figure during his own lifetime.

Jerome is, of course, most famous for translating the Bible into Latin. Jerome's Vulgate (from "versio vulgata," in English "the version commonly used") began in 382 a revision of pre-existing Latin translations of the Gospels already in use in Latin-speaking Christian churches. He then decided to translate additional books of the Bible, working primarily from the original Hebrew for the Old Testament (though he did translate the psalms from both the Septuagint—the Greek Old Testament—and the original Hebrew), using the Aramaic, Septuagint, and additional Greek editions for books like Tobit and Judith, which appear in the Apocrypha.

An interesting fact is that the term "Vulgate" was not used to describe Jerome's translation until Martin Luther's lifetime. It was not adopted as the official edition of the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church until the Council of Trent, and even then, there was no official edition of the Vulgate available. It wasn't until 1590 that the official, authoritative edition of Jerome's Vulgate was published, the Sixtine Vulgate. It was revised shortly thereafter in 1592 as the Clementine Vulgate (both editions being named for the then-current pope). The next edition was not published until 1979! The Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate) revised Jerome's text, but primarily in minor and stylistic ways.

Martin Luther had a conflicted relationship with Jerome. On the one hand, Luther chafed against Jerome's at times harsh personality and his fixation on celibacy—in fact, he suggested that the great translator was "obviously in need of a wife!" However, Luther had great respect for his work as a translator, one that he surely found compelling and inspiring in his own work. It's not surprising that you can find depictions of Luther posed and styled like a new St. Jerome, as his contemporaries connected the translator of the Vulgate with that of the German Bible.

Image: Fra Angelico, Penitent St. Jerome,

The author died in 1455, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.

09/29/2026

Michaelmas Blessings to you from all of us at Concordia Historical Institute!

The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels falls on September 29th. Though it is less well-known today, Michaelmas has been a historically significant feast day for the church and for secular institutions that make use of the church calendar: Michaelmas is usually associated with the beginning of autumn, and it is also used as one of the "quarter days" in England and Ireland, used for hiring servants, scheduling school terms, and paying rents.

Michaelmas celebrates the archangel Michael and all angels for their role as messengers of God's good news and protectors of God's people. Michaelmas dates back to the 5th century and was very popular throughout the medieval period. Goose and blackberries served as the typical fare for celebrations that day.

There have been 22 St. Michael's churches within the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 12 of which are still open today. The oldest St. Michael's LCMS church is in Frankenhilf (now Richeville), Michigan. Other St. Michaels churches are found across Michigan as well as in Florida, Texas, Illinois, New York, Minnesota, and Oregon.

While it is unusual to find an LCMS church named for St. Michael, there are a plethora of depictions of angels found in our Lutheran churches. We confess that "angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven" are present alongside us in worship, especially in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and so it makes sense to have them depicted in our sanctuaries.

Does your church have a depiction of Michael the archangel or any angel? Post a picture below in the comments!