The first Dutch Reformed Church in the Orange Free State is founded

On 31 March 1842, Reverend Daniel Lindley instituted the first congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Orange Free State, which makes this day the founding day of the church in that province. The Dutch Reformed Church arrived in South Africa in the seventeenth century, after Calvinist reforms in Europe had entrenched the idea of predestination, and the Synod of Dort in the Netherlands had proclaimed this church as the "community of the elect" in 1619. The church gained recognition as the state religion in 1651, and the Dutch East India Company, as an extension of the state in southern Africa, established the first Dutch Reformed Church at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.