The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#1751
Ermis Segatti
#52974
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Ermis Segatti , is a Catholic theologian and university Professor belonging to the Archdiocese of Turin, Italy. Biography Ermis Segatti, after completing his theological training at the Catholic Seminary of Turin, obtained a Laurea in German Literature discussing Friedrich von Spee and German Religious Poetry in the 17th century, and another one in History of Christianity, concerning Church and State Inquisitorial Trial on Magic, from the University of Turin. He is Professor of History of Christianity at the Theological University of Northern Italy - Turin Campus . Until 2013 he was also a t...
Go to Profile#1752
Elmer Smick
#83600
Overall Influence
1921 - 1994 (73 years)
Elmer Bernard Smick was an Old Testament scholar, professor, and former president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Background and education Smick was born in Baltimore, Maryland and married childhood sweetheart Jane Harrison on August 19, 1944. He earned his B.A. from The Kings College, his Th.B. and S.T.M from Faith Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. from the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. He also completed post-doctoral studies at Brandeis University New York University .
Go to Profile#1753
Rovshan Abdullaoglu
#57342
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Rovshan Abdulla oglu Abdullaev is an Azerbaijani writer, philosopher, psychologist, and a member of PEN America. He is the founder of the publishing house Gadim Gala, and director of its scientific department.
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Max Stackhouse
#92910
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Max Lynn Stackhouse was the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was the president of the Berkshire Institute for Theology and the Arts.
Go to Profile#1755
Jonathan Bartley
#32697
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Jonathan Charles Bartley is a British politician and was Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, a position he shared with Caroline Lucas from 2016 to 2018, and then, from 2018 to 2021, with Siân Berry. He was the Green Party's national Work and Pensions spokesperson and the party's Parliamentary candidate for Streatham in the 2015 general election. He was the Unite to Remain candidate for Dulwich and West Norwood at the 2019 general election.
Go to Profile#1756
Peter Lampe
#48254
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Peter Lampe is a German Protestant theologian and chaired Professor of New Testament Studies/History of Early Christianity at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Life After studies in theology, philosophy and archaeology at Bielefeld and Göttingen and Rome he received his Ph.D. and his Dr. habil. at the University of Bern in Switzerland with works about the social history of the early Christians in the city of Rome in the first two centuries and about the concept of unity and community in the Pauline letters. Scholarships of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation supported his university education and PhD studies.
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Carole R. Fontaine
#85338
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Carole R. Fontaine is an internationally recognized American biblical scholar. She is the John Taylor professor of biblical theology and history at the Andover Newton Theological School and feminist author of six books and over 100 articles, in addition to serving on several editorial boards . She has written extensively on feminist theological topics, including disability, and is an expert in wisdom traditions and women in the ancient Near East.
Go to Profile#1758
Todd H. Speidell
#98390
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Dr. Todd H. Speidell is a retired educator, theologian, and ethicist. He continues his work as Editor of Participatio: Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship and General Editor of The Ray S. Anderson Collection . His most recent jobs were as Lecturer in Theology at Montreat College , Director of Education at The Village Academy of Village Behavioral Health , and Director of College Prep Academy of West Knoxville .
Go to Profile#1759
Kathy Rudy
#65611
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
M. Kathy Rudy is an American women's studies scholar, and theologian. A retired professor at Duke University, Rudy's work is often interdisciplinary as she merges philosophy, theology, politics, feminism, and medical ethics. She is open about her homosexuality and is a radical social constructionist.
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Tova Hartman
#30703
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Tova Hartman is the Dean of Humanities at the Ono Academic College. Biography Tova Hartman is the daughter of Rabbi Prof. David Hartman. She was married to Moshe Halbertal, and they have three daughters. She is a founder of Kehillat Shira Hadasha, a congregation organized to increase women's participation and leadership within traditional Jewish prayer and halakha.
Go to Profile#1761
Michael Hurley
#60166
Overall Influence
1923 - 2011 (88 years)
Father Michael Hurley S.J. was an Irish Jesuit priest and theologian, who has been widely called the "father of Irish ecumenism" for promoting Christian unity. Hurley co-founded the Irish School of Ecumenics in 1970 and served as the school's director until 1980.
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Christina Baxter
#100308
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Christina Ann Baxter is a British theologian and an active member of the Church of England . From 1997 to 2012, she was Principal of St John's College, Nottingham, an Anglican theological college. Since 1979, she has been a Reader, a type of lay minister, in the C of E. She served as Chairwoman of the House of Laity of the General Synod of the C of E from 1995 to 2010 and was a member of the Archbishops' Council from 1999 to 2010. In October 2000, she was made an honorary canon of Southwell Minster.
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Albert M. Wolters
#51694
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Albert Marten "Al" Wolters is an emeritus professor of religion at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario . He has been described as a "towering figure" in the Kuyperian neo-Calvinist pantheon. Early life and education Born in the Netherlands on March 30, 1942, Wolters studied at Calvin College , the Free University of Amsterdam , and McMaster University .
Go to Profile#1764
Ariel Stone
#116910
Overall Influence
Ariel Stone, also called C. Ariel Stone, is the first American rabbi to lead a congregation in the former Soviet Union, and the first progressive rabbi to serve the Jewish community in Ukraine. After serving as Assistant Rabbi of Temple Israel of Greater Miami 1991 to 1993 with Rabbi Rex Perlmeter, she represented the World Union for Progressive Judaism in Ukraine from 1993 until 1994. While in Ukraine she was a rabbi at Congregation HaTikvah in Kiev, and helped in creating progressive congregations in Ukraine. In 1993-1994 she taught Holocaust studies at the University of Central Florida.
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Erik Gunnes
#114215
Overall Influence
1924 - 1999 (75 years)
Erik Gunnes was a Norwegian historian. He was born in Bodø to Bjørnulf Røe Gunnæs and Antonie Berg. He studied theology in France, and served as Catholic priest in Oslo until 1965. He then focused on the study of Norwegian Middle Age history. From 1977 to 1991 he was appointed at the University of Oslo, eventually with a professorship in history.
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Miguel Núñez
#100143
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Dr. Miguel Núñez is a Dominican–American doctor, author, speaker and founder of Wisdom & Integrity Ministries. Núñez is a practicing doctor with specializations in Internal medicine and Infectious Diseases and Head Pastor of the International Baptist Church in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
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John S. Dunne
#69513
Overall Influence
1929 - 2013 (84 years)
John S. Dunne, C.S.C. was an American priest and theologian of the Congregation of Holy Cross. He held the John A. O'Brien Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Youth and training Fr. Dunne was born on December 3, 1929, to John Scribner and Dorothy Dunne in Waco, Texas. The eldest of three children, his birth was followed by siblings Patrick and Carrin. He attended St. Edward's Academy on the campus of St. Edward's University, Austin, Texas, from 1943 to 1945, and then moved to Holy Cross Minor Seminary at the University of Notre Dame for his senior year of high school. Fr.
Go to Profile#1768
Gerard Timoner III
#76434
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Gerard Francisco Parco Timoner III is a Filipino Catholic priest who serves as the 88th Master of the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans, since 13 July 2019, the first Asian to hold the position.
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Alfredo Magarotto
#129526
Overall Influence
1927 - 2021 (94 years)
Alfredo Magarotto was an Italian Roman Catholic bishop. Magarotto was born in Italy and was ordained to the priesthood in 1950. He served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chioggia, Italy, from 1990 to 1997 and as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vittorio Veneto, Italy, from 1997 to 2003. He returned briefly after retirement to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vittorio Veneto in the year 2007 as diocesan Administrator.
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Scalimoli
#93754
Overall Influence
Scalimoli was a Franciscan friar and Catholic theologian, better known by his religious name, Andrea di Castellana, from his place of origin in Apulia, southern Italy. Biography He entered the Order of the Conventual Franciscans in the Province of St. Nicholas , of which he was later appointed provincial superior. His experience as a missionary in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania , as Prefect Apostolic of Hungary and as visitor general of the Franciscan missions in Russia led him to the composition of a work which was approved by the general of the order in 1642 and is dedicated to Cardina...
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Sara Hurwitz
#58186
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Sara Hurwitz is an Orthodox Jewish spiritual leader aligned with the "Open Orthodox" faction of Modern Orthodox Judaism in the United States. She is considered by some to be the first female Orthodox rabbi. She serves as Rabba at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, and the president and co-founder of Yeshivat Maharat, both in Riverdale, New York.
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Eugenio Ravignani
#125619
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Eugenio Ravignani was an Italian Roman Catholic bishop. Ravignani was born in Italy and was ordained to the priesthood in 1955. He served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vittorio Veneto, Italy, from 1983 to 1997 and as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trieste, Italy, from 1997 to 2009.
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Euler Renato Westphal
#95991
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Euler Renato Westphal is a university professor, writer and Lutheran theologian. Biography Westphal earned a bachelor's degree in theology from Missions Seminary of St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission . He worked eight years as a pastor in "Missão Evangélica União Cristã" , in Rio do Sul and Blumenau, Santa Catarina. He was also the founder of "Centro de Recuperação Nova Esperança" , a center for alcoholics and chemical dependents, and of a social work for poor families, the "Bom Amigo" , in Blumenau.
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G. Thompson Brown
#87537
Overall Influence
1921 - 2014 (93 years)
G. Thompson "Tommy" Brown was the Professor Emeritus of World Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary, a missionary, author, and the Director of the Division of International Mission for the Presbyterian Church in the United States . He spent much of his life in Korea focusing on strengthening the Presbyterian Church there. His daughter is Mary Brown Bullock, who was President of Agnes Scott College and a foundation executive in developing exchange with China.
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William M. Kramer
#58541
Overall Influence
1920 - 2004 (84 years)
William Mordecai Kramer was an American rabbi, university professor and art collector. He served as the rabbi of Temple Beth Emet in Burbank, California from 1965 to 1996. He was an associate professor of religious studies at the California State University, Northridge for two decades, where he established the Jewish Studies program.
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Hans Schwarz
#102916
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Hans Schwarz is a German Lutheran theologian. Life and career After graduation from the Gymnasium in Schwabach Hans Schwarz studied theology and English literature at the Universities of Erlangen and Göttingen. In 1963 he passed the entrance exam of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria and obtained his Dr. theol. degree from the University of Erlangen. His thesis was on Das Verständnis des Wunders bei Heim und Bultmann . 1963-1964 he served as vicar at the church seminary in Nuremberg. The following year he obtained a WCC scholarship and a Fulbright Travel Grant to study at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology in Oberlin, Ohio, USA.
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Mark Elvins
#76960
Overall Influence
1939 - 2014 (75 years)
Mark Turnham Elvins OFMCap was Warden of Greyfriars, Oxford, until its closure in 2008. Life Mark Turnham Elvins was born on 26 November 1939 in Whitstable, the son of an Anglican priest who had been rector of St Mary in the Castle, Dover.
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Benedicta Ward
#98929
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Benedicta Ward was a Church of England nun, theologian and historian. She was a member of the Anglican religious order, the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God and reader in early Christian spirituality at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. She was particularly known for her research on the Desert Fathers, popularising the collection of their writings known as the Apophthegmata Patrum. She wrote extensively on Anselm of Canterbury and Bede.
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Nathan MacDonald
#92552
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
A British biblical scholar, Nathan MacDonald currently serves as Reader in the Interpretation of the Old Testament at Cambridge University as well as Fellow and College Lecturer in theology at St John's College, Cambridge. Much of his work has concentrated on the historical conception of monotheism in ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Through major research projects, publications, conference organization, and editorial undertakings, his academic endeavors have helped bridge Anglo-American and Continental biblical scholarship.
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Sarhad Yawsip Jammo
#113317
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Sarhad Yawsip Hermiz Jammo is a Chaldean Catholic prelate of the Chaldean Catholic Church who presided over the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego in the United States. He had been the bishop of this diocese since its inception on July 25, 2002. His bishopric currently sits at St. Peter's Chaldean Catholic Cathedral in El Cajon, California. Mar Sarhad Jammo was born in Baghdad and ordained a priest on December 19, 1964. Following 38 years as a priest, he was elevated to the episcopate by the then Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Mar Raphael I Bidawid. Upon his installment, his first post was to serve as bishop of the newly created eparchy, St.
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Hamish Swanston
#106361
Overall Influence
1933 - 2013 (80 years)
Hamish Francis Gambon Swanston was a British theologian and historian. Swanston was born in Great Yarmouth at Swanston House. His family originated from Swanston near Edinburgh. He graduated from Durham University in 1954 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1960. At the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1977, he became the first Catholic to head a Department of Theology at a British university since the Reformation. He lectured regularly on various topics, notably including seventeenth and eighteenth century European opera, on which he ha...
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Paolo Benanti
#77909
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Paolo Benanti is an Italian presbyter, theologian and academic of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. He teaches at the Pontifical Gregorian University and is advisor to Pope Francis on issues of artificial intelligence and technology ethics.
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Franz Jung
#80409
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Franz Jung is a German Roman Catholic bishop. Life Jung studied Roman Catholic theology and philosophy at Ducal Georgianum in Munich and at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. On October 10, 1992 he became priest. In January 2009 Jung became Vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer. Since June 10, 2018 Jung is bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Würzburg. He succeeded German bishop Friedhelm Hofmann .
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Philip Comfort
#100976
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Philip Wesley Comfort was a professor, writer, editor and expert on the Bible who specialized in textual criticism of the New Testament. He served as Professor of Greek and New Testament at Trinity Episcopal Seminary, visiting professor at Wheaton College, and senior Bible reference editor at Tyndale House Publishers.
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Ivar Asheim
#91663
Overall Influence
1927 - 2020 (93 years)
Ivar Asheim is a Norwegian theologian known for his early research into Christian education and later publications investigating the moral theology of Martin Luther, including its relation to Aristotelian virtue ethics.
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Theo Hobson
#91382
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Theo Hobson is a British theologian and author. Biography He was educated at St Paul's School in London; he read English literature at the University of York, then theology at the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of Hughes Hall. He focused on the strongest voices of the Protestant tradition: Martin Luther, Søren Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth. His PhD thesis became the basis of his first book, The Rhetorical Word: Protestant Theology and the Rhetoric of Authority , a study of the role of authoritative rhetoric in Protestantism.
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Yvonne Seon
#15152
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Yvonne Seon is an American professor, university administrator, and Unitarian Universalist minister. She specializes in African studies, African American studies, and government administration. She was an administrative officer in the government of Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and also worked in the U.S. federal government. She then worked as a university administrator and founded a Black Studies Center at Wright State University, and helped to design one of the first doctoral programs in Black Studies in the United States. In 1981 Seon became the first African Ame...
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William H. Brackney
#102166
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
William Henry Brackney was the Millard R. Cherry Distinguished Professor of Christian Thought and Ethics Emeritus at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and an ordained Baptist minister, accredited by the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches and the American Baptist Churches, USA. He was previously the Dean of Theology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and published numerous books and articles dealing with post-Reformation Protestant thought, particularly the Baptist and Radical Reformation traditions. Brackney did significant work in the areas of global ethics and human rights, and was the director of the Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies .
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Iain Paul
#119486
Overall Influence
1939 - 2012 (73 years)
Iain Paul was a Scottish chemist and theologian born in Glasgow, Scotland as the Second World War was stirring. Iain and his sister were raised by their paternal grandparents attending Govan High School .
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Edmund Campion
#67716
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Edmund Campion is an Australian Catholic priest and historian. He was educated at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview and the University of Sydney, where he was editor of the student newspaper Honi Soit in 1953. He was appointed a lecturer in history at the Catholic Institute of Sydney, later becoming Professor of History there.
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Thomas M. King
#75844
Overall Influence
1929 - 2009 (80 years)
Thomas Mulvihill King, S.J. was a professor of theology at Georgetown University. King entered the Society of Jesus in 1951 after completing undergraduate studies in English at the University of Pittsburgh. As a Jesuit, he undertook further studies at Fordham University and Woodstock College and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1964. After completing a doctorate in theology at the University of Strasbourg in 1968, King began teaching at Georgetown. A member of the American Teilhard Association, he has written or edited several books on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, including Teilhard's ...
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Christoph Schmauch
#109596
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Christoph Schmauch Schmauch is a retired Lutheran pastor, who also served as the director of the World Fellowship Center in Albany, New Hampshire for 32 years. Schmauch is the son of Werner Schmauch, who helped to found the Christian Peace Conference. After graduating from high school in 1955, he studied Protestant theology at three separate universities, before becoming ordained as a pastor by the United Lutheran Church in 1958. In the early 1960s, he married Kathryn 'Kit' Hively , a school teacher from Columbus, Ohio and they subsequently had four children, three sons and one daughter. In ...
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Anthony Mikovsky
#65413
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Anthony Mikovsky is an American Polish National Catholic bishop. He is Prime Bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church, having been elected at the General Synod of the church in October 2010 and his installation at 21 November 2010, at St. Stanislaus Cathedral, in South Scranton. Mikovsky was previously the bishop ordinary of the Central Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church. Mikovsky holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Michael W. Higgins
#66781
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Michael William Higgins is a Canadian academic and writer. He was the interim principal of St. Mark's College and president of Corpus Christi College from July 15, 2020- July 31, 2023. Higgins and his wife Krystyna, a professional piano accompanist, liturgical musician and freelance editor, have four adult children---Rebecca, Andrew, Sarah and Alexa.
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Peter M. Donohue
#24704
Overall Influence
Peter M. Donohue is an American academic administrator and Roman Catholic priest who was inaugurated as Villanova University's 32nd President on September 8, 2006. He had served as the Chair of the Villanova Theatre Department since 1992.
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Pauline Allen
#45716
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Pauline Allen, is an Australian scholar of early Christianity. She is Research Professor of Early Christian Studies and the Director of the Centre for Early Christian Studies at the Australian Catholic University.
Go to Profile#1797
Giuseppe De Andrea
#106692
Overall Influence
1930 - 2016 (86 years)
Giuseppe De Andrea was an Italian-born prelate of the Catholic Church who spent twenty years as a pastor in the United States and then twenty-five years in the diplomatic service of the Holy See. Early years Giuseppe De Andrea was born on 20 April 1930 in Rivarolo Canavese, Italy, to Antonio and Antonietta De Andrea. His elder brother is Archbishop Giovanni De Andrea.
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Jim Thompson
#97131
Overall Influence
1936 - 2003 (67 years)
James Lawton Thompson was a British Anglican bishop. He was firstly the suffragan Bishop of Stepney from 1978 to 1991 and later the diocesan Bishop of Bath and Wells in succession to George Carey who had become Archbishop of Canterbury. He retired in 2001.
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Rex M. Rogers
#53186
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Rex M. Rogers has served as President of SAT-7 USA since 2009, the American promotion and fundraising arm of SAT-7, a Christian satellite television ministry by and for the people of the Middle East and North Africa. SAT-7, based in Nicosia, Cyprus, supports quality, indigenous-produced programming on four channels in three languages, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.
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Elaine Wainwright
#115663
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Elaine Mary Wainwright was Richard Maclaurin Goodfellow Professor in Theology at the University of Auckland. She retired at the end of 2014. She is known for her feminist scholarship in Matthew's gospel, and work on gender and healing within the Graeco-Roman world. Some of her recent publications are The Bible in/and Popular Culture: A Creative Encounter , Women Healing/Healing Women: the Genderisation of Healing in Early Christianity , and Shall We Look for Another: A Feminist Re-reading of the Matthean Jesus . Wainwright initially studied at the University of Queensland and then obtained a m...
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