This Sabbathkeeping movement reached the highest levels of Russian society and led to fiery executions in Moscow's Red Square.

Jesuit missionaries succeeded in converting the Emperor to Roman Catholicism, but attempts to quash Sabbath observance resulted in civil war.

Civil and religious authorities united to root out "heresy."

Ferdinand and Isabella, the "Catholic Monarchs," used the Spanish Inquisition to rid their church of Jewish heresies.

Inquisitors carried their campaign of religious persecution into the new territories of Portugal's expanding empire.

Protestant Reformers insisted on the authority of the sacred Scriptures, while Catholic leaders defended their church's stand on Tradition.

Persecuted by Protestants and Catholics alike, these radical reformers stood for strict adherence to biblical teachings. Among them were new champions of the Sabbath.

While many Puritan preachers insisted on strict observance of Sunday, other prominent Englishmen called for a return to the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.