Portal:Christianity

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Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".

The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music, which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest (1861), was received with acclaim on its first performance in London. Among his early major works were a ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864), a symphony, a cello concerto (both 1866), and his Overture di Ballo (1870). To supplement the income from his concert works he wrote hymns, parlour ballads and other light pieces, and worked as a church organist and music teacher. (Full article...)

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St Mary's Church, Llanfair-yng-Nghornwy is a medieval parish church in the north-west of Anglesey, north Wales. The date of foundation of the church, which is in the village of Llanfair-yng-Nghornwy, is unknown, but the oldest parts date from the 11th or 12th century. It has twice been enlarged: in the 15th century, when the chancel was rebuilt, and in the 16th century, when a chapel was added to the south of the chancel, separated by three arches. The tower at the west end is from the 17th century. A south porch of unknown date has been converted into a vestry, and the church is now entered through the tower.

St Mary's is a Grade I listed building, a national designation given to buildings of "exceptional, usually national, interest", in particular because it is regarded as "a fine rural parish church, incorporating significant early Medieval fabric". Writers in the 19th century commented on the "lofty square tower", the "very good" east window, and the "many elegant monuments"; the clergyman and antiquarian Harry Longueville Jones called St Mary's "one of the best specimens of an old parish church in the island". In the 21st century, one writer has noted the "impressive lychgate" and a guide to the buildings of the region calls it "the most important church in north west Anglesey". (Full article...)

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The Siege of Belgrade (1456) or Battle of Belgrade or Siege of Nándorfehérvár occurred from July 4–22, 1456. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II rallied his resources in order to subjugate the Kingdom of Hungary. His immediate objective was the border fort of the town of Belgrade (in old Hungarian Nándorfehérvár). John Hunyadi, the Voivode of Transylvania, who had fought many battles against the Turks in the previous two decades, prepared the defenses of the fortress. Since 22 July 2011, the date when Christian forces led by John Hunyadi and John of Capistrano defeated the Ottoman Turks besieging Belgrade in 1456, has been a national memorial day in Hungary.

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• ... that in the Book of Mormon, the city of Ammonihah kills Christians by fire as a deliberately twisted reference to a warning that spiritual death is like a "lake of fire and brimstone"?
• ... that American religious speaker Ann Kiemel Anderson ran in two Boston Marathons and two Israel marathons near the Sea of Galilee to promote Christianity?
• ... that wood type for printing was invented in China, first mass-produced in the United States, and later exported back to China for use by missionaries?
• ... that Jacobus Capitein, who was sold into slavery at either age 7 or 8, promoted proslavery arguments based on Christianity?
• ... that a Catholic radio station in Texas wields the "velvet hammer" to promote Christianity?
• ... that the Global Methodist Church is part of a proposed divorce over marriage?