Wednesday, November 19, 2025

It is the 19th of November 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Any Reformation tour worth its salt (check out mine at gtitours.org, space still available for next September) is going to take you in through the black forests of Thuringia, into the town of Eisenach- where Bach was born and Luther was a student and then you’ll make your way just outside of town, up an imposing hill to the famous Wartburg Castle. This is where Luther was hidden away in 1521 and began his revolutionary translation of the Bible into German.   

But anyone who goes to the castle will certainly take in the famous room where Luther stayed and translated- but the most striking room is a vaulted room, with floor-to-ceiling Byzantine-style gold tiles, and the story, around the top of the room, told in mosaic of good St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Elizabeth, who lived in the castle in the 1200s, fascinated Luther and would become a saint celebrated in the following centuries across the Reformation divide. We are in something of a triduum of feast days for Elizabeth- celebrated by Catholics mostly on the 17th (the day of her death) and by Anglicans on the 18th and Lutherans on this, the 19th of November.  

Yes, she was Hungarian-born in Hungary in 1207 (Hungarians fight over exactly where) to Gertrude and her husband, King Andrew II of Hungary. By 4, she had been betrothed into the influential Ludovingian house of Thuringia and Hesse, to Ludwig (eventually, after his older brother died, to whom she was first engaged). When Ludwig's father died, he became Ludwig IV, and the two were married in 1221 with Elizabeth, 14, and Ludwig, 20.

She had been especially known for her piety. Stories abound, as they do with remarkable people in the Middle Ages, and we can enjoy as pious legends like the young girl giving up her toys to other children and found constantly praying in the chapel.

We know that she was especially concerned with the plight of the poor. Down the mountain from the Wartburg, she built a hospital and would spend time there tending to the sick. It also became a place for her to distribute food and goods from the castle to the people. The famous legend of bread and roses- while attributed to others, earlier- still has found its most popular expression with Elizabeth. She had filled her cloak with loaves of bread to distribute and was stopped by the king's brother, a cranky fellow who was mad she was giving away what belonged to the castle. He bid her to open her cloak to show the loaves, but they were miraculously turned into roses.  

Her life took a major turn with Ludwig's death on the way to the 6th Crusade in 1227. She continued to devote herself to the poor but became involved with the recently formed Franciscans and joined their order as a tertiary- a third thing- not cloistered or with the same vows as monks or nuns, but similar vows, and they live in the world. She would help them establish a monastery in Eisenach and was sent… there’s some controversy over how she left the Wartburg- but she would go to Marburg, where she would build a hospital again and live under the direction of Master Conrad. Protestant versions of her story tend to make him, for good reasons, the taskmaster who demanded too much of her. She continued to serve the poor and became as popular in Marburg as she was in Eisenach- but her mortifications became more extreme, and the young queen turned Franciscan- friend to the poor- died in 1231 at only 24 years old. You’ll hear some version of “consumed by her charitable labors” or “died from hard work”- was it Master Conrad’s overbearing orders, or was it that working in hospitals in the Middle Ages was probably dangerous. Any which way- she would become the patron saint of Hospitals- and you might have a “St. Elizabeth’s” near you- it may well be named after the saint of the Wartburg- the charitable queen whose bread turned to roses- St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who is remembered by many around the date of her death in 1231.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Isaiah 66, with its picture of all the nations being called into the New Heavens and Earth.

19 “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. 20 And they will bring all your people, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,” says the Lord. “They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the Lord in ceremonially clean vessels. 21 And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the Lord.

22 “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 19th of November 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows that you can’t possibly die from being overworked… he’s tried… He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who still wonders why she didn’t just say to her brother-in-law: it’s bread for heaven's sake… from my castle- scram… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.