March 25, 1625: England's King James I dies. In 1604, at the Hampton Court Conference, James authorized the translation project that produced the 1611 King James (Authorized) Version of the Bible.

March 26, 655: Deusdedit becomes the first English-born Archbishop of Canterbury. He served until 664.

March 26, 752: Stephen III assumes the papacy after Stephen II dies. But Stephen III is sometimes called Stephen II, since the real Stephen II hardly counts: he died a mere four days after his election!

March 26, 1831: Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the first black bishop in America, dies at age 71.

March 30, 1533: Thomas Cranmer is consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, England's highest religious post. Believing himself subject to the king, Henry VIII, he granted the monarch's annulment ending his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. This touched off the English Reformation, and Cranmer became its chief architect. He is also known for writing the first Book of Common Prayer.

March 30, 1820: The first Protestant missionaries arrive at the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii, and are welcomed by King Kamehameha II.

March 30, 1858: Episcopal minister Dudley Tyne, burdened for the salvation of husbands and fathers, speaks to a rally of 5,000 men in Philadelphia. "I would rather this right arm were amputated at the trunk than that I should come short of my duty to you in delivering God's message," he said. Over 1,000 men were converted. Two weeks later, Tyne lost his right arm in a farming accident, and he died soon after. His last words, "Stand up for Jesus, father, and tell my brethren of the ministry to stand up for Jesus," inspired the hymn "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus."

March 31, 1146: French monastic reformer and theologian Bernard of Clairvaux preaches for the Second Crusade at Vezelay, France. He urged his audience to "take the sign of the cross," and so many responded that he ran out of cloth crosses to pass out (he ended up tearing pieces from his own habit to stitch on the shirts of would-be crusaders). When the crusade proved to be a failure, people were shocked that a venture supported by such a powerful man of God could go wrong.

March 31, 1492: After the Inquisition failed to convert Spain's Jews, monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella sign an edict giving them three months to leave the country. An estimated 150,000 Jews fled, the last reportedly leaving August 2, the traditional anniversary of the destruction of the first and second temples. The next day, August 3, Christopher Columbus sailed for America.

March 31, 1732: Franz Joseph Haydn, mentor to both Beethoven and Mozart, is born in Austria. His greatest contribution to church music is probably his 1798 oratorio The Creation.

March 31, 1879: Father John Veniaminov, missionary to Alaska, dies. Known as St. Innocent of Alaska, Veniaminov pioneered Russian Orthodox church plants in the Alaskan islands, and located his archdiocese in Sitka.