Today we remember Christmas Evans, one of Wales’s most remarkable nonconformist ministers and preachers, born on Christmas Day 1766 near Llandysul in Cardiganshire.

Evans rose from humble beginnings — the son of a shoemaker, illiterate until his late teens — to become a powerful and widely-admired Baptist preacher whose vivid imagination and passionate style earned him nicknames such as “The Bunyan of Wales” and “the greatest preacher that the Baptists have ever had in Great Britain.”

He served many congregations across Wales, building up churches and inspiring revival, and was known for sermons that stirred both heart and mind. Despite personal hardships, including the loss of an eye in youth, his influence endured long after his death in 1838 in Swansea, where his funeral was one of the largest ever seen in the country.

On this Christmas Day anniversary, we honour his legacy as a towering figure in Welsh religious history.