This week in Christian history: Mojave Cross, Presbyterian university chartered, Augustine baptized

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, April 24, 2022

Augustine of Hippo baptized – April 24, 387

Saint Augustine of Hippo, as depicted in a Tiffany stained-glass window at the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida. | Wikimedia Commons /Daderot

This week marks the anniversary of when early church father Saint Augustine of Hippo, author of notable works The City of God and Confessions, was baptized along with his son.

Born to a Christian mother and a pagan father, Augustine later recounted living a sinful life in his youth, which included having a child out of wedlock, before converting to Christianity.

The baptism, which included Augustine, his son, and several others, was performed by Saint Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, during the Easter Vigil, which went into the following day.

“Thus was brought to its happy end the long and tiring journey of Augustine's conversion to the Catholic faith,” according to The Augustinians website.

“Augustine's conversion numbers among the most well-known and most significant of all of Christian history: well-known, through Augustine's own recording of it in his Confessions; significant, not only for the impact which his life of faith … has had on the Catholic Church ever since, but also on the many men and women of every period whose own personal lives have been altered by reading it.”