close at hand." Nachenmoser offered numerous conjectures about the date; 1635 seemed most likely. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod issued a study in 1989 refuting any end times claims, declaring that "repeatedly taught by Jesus and the apostles is the truth that the exact hour of Christ's coming remains hidden in the secret counsels of God ( 24:36)". Latter Day Saints Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith, made several dozen prophecies during his lifetime, many of which are recorded in the sacred texts of the Mormon faith. The prophecies included predictions of the Civil War, the second coming of Jesus, and several less significant predictions. Church apologists cite prophecies that they claim came true, and church critics cite prophecies that they claim did not come true. Mennonites Russian Mennonite minister Claas Epp, Jr. predicted that Christ would return on March 8, 1889, and, when that date passed uneventfully, 1891. Montanists Montanus, who founded the Montanist movement in 156 AD, predicted that Jesus would return during the lifetime of the group's founding members. Presbyterian Church Thomas Brightman, who lived from 1562 to 1607, has been called "one of the fathers of Presbyterianism in England." He predicted that "between 1650 and 1695 [we] would see the conversion of the many Jews and a revival of their nation in Palestine…the destruction of the Papacy…the marriage of the Lamb and his wife." Christopher Love, who lived from 1618 to 1651, predicted that: (1) Babylon would fall in 1758, (2) God's anger against the wicked would be demonstrated in 1759, and (3) in 1763 there would occur a great earthquake all over the world. Roman Catholic Church When in 1525 Martin Luther, a former monk, married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, his enemies said that their offspring would fulfill an old tradition that the Antichrist would be the son of such a union. The Catholic scholar and theologian Erasmus remarked that the tradition could apply to thousands of such children. In 1771, Bishop Charles Walmesley published, under the pen name of "Signor Pastorini", his "General History of the Christian Church from Her Birth to Her Final Triumphant State in Heaven Chiefly Deduced from the Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist". In it he attributed to what he called the fifth age of the Church a duration of 300 years, beginning with the Protestant Reformation in 1520 or 1525. This was widely interpreted