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.
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#3651
Ludwig Ott
1906 - 1985 (79 years)
Ludwig Ott was a Roman Catholic theologian and medievalist from Bavaria, Germany. After training at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Ott was ordained a priest in 1930. He received his doctorate in Munich under Martin Grabmann and was mentored by him in studying the development of medieval theology. In 1936 he was , and in 1941 an of dogmatics at the episcopal philosophical and theological college in Eichstätt. From 1960 to 1962 he was the rector of this Catholic university.
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Gildas
500 - 570 (70 years)
Gildas — also known as Gildas the Wise or Gildas Sapiens — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic , which recounts the history of the Britons before and during the coming of the Saxons. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the sub-Roman period, and was renowned for his Biblical knowledge and literary style. In his later life, he emigrated to Brittany where he founded a monastery known as Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys.
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Johann Augustus Eberhard
1739 - 1809 (70 years)
Johann Augustus Eberhard was a German theologian and "popular philosopher". Life and career Eberhard was born at Halberstadt in the Principality of Halberstadt, where his father was a school teacher and the singing master at the church of St. Martin's. He studied theology at the University of Halle, and became tutor to the eldest son of Baron von der Horst, to whose family he was attached for several years. In 1763 he was appointed co-rector of the school of St. Martin's, and second preacher in the hospital church of the Holy Ghost, but he soon resigned these offices and followed his patron to Berlin.
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Johann Franz Buddeus
1667 - 1729 (62 years)
Johann Franz Buddeus or Budde was a German Lutheran theologian and philosopher. Life Johann Franz Buddeus was a descendant of the French scholar Guillaume Budé ; the Huguenot family fled France after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and those who emigrated to Pomerania Germanized their name as Budde, the Latin equivalent of which was Buddeus.
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Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
1813 - 1891 (78 years)
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener was a New Testament textual critic and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible. He was prebendary of Exeter, and vicar of Hendon.
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Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe
1808 - 1872 (64 years)
Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe was a pastor of the Lutheran Church, Confesional Lutheran writer, and is often regarded as being a founder of the deaconess movement in Lutheranism and a founding sponsor of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod . From the small town of Neuendettelsau, he sent pastors to North America, Australia, New Guinea, Brazil, and Ukraine. His work for a clear confessional basis within the Bavarian church sometimes led to conflict with the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. His chief concern was that a parish find its life in the eucharist, and from that source evangelism and social ministries would flow.
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Joseph Hergenröther
1824 - 1890 (66 years)
Joseph Hergenröther was a German Church historian and canonist, and the first Cardinal-Prefect of the Vatican Archive. Biography Born in Würzburg, he was the second son of Johann Jacob Hergenröther, professor of medicine in the University of Würzburg. In 1842 Hergenröther completed with notable success his gymnasium course in his native town, and entered the University of Würzburg to take up a two-year course of philosophical studies, to which he added certain branches of theology. His historical tendencies exhibited themselves at this early age in a dramatic poem entitled Papst Gregor VII .
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Thomas Erastus
1524 - 1583 (59 years)
Thomas Erastus was a Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian. He wrote 100 theses in which he argued that the sins committed by Christians should be punished by the State, and that the Church should not withhold sacraments as a form of punishment. They were published in 1589, after his death, with the title . His name was later applied to Erastianism.
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Saint Valentine
175 - 273 (98 years)
Saint Valentine was a 3rd-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14 and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6. From the High Middle Ages, his Saints' Day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni, epilepsy and beekeepers. Saint Valentine was a clergymaneither a priest or a bishopin the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians. He was martyred and his body buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine since at least the eighth century.
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George Foot Moore
1851 - 1931 (80 years)
George Foot Moore was an eminent historian of religion, author, Presbyterian minister, an american scholar of Hebrew scriptures and Judaism, and accomplished teacher. Life Moore was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Rev. William Eves Moore and Harriet Foot Moore. He was educated at private schools, West Chester Academy and Wyer's School, entered Yale College as a junior in 1870, then graduated from Yale in 1872, as a Phi Beta Kappa and member of the Skull and Bones society. After teaching at Hopkins Grammar School from 1872 to 1873, he engaged in study and private teaching in Columbus, Ohio, 1873–74, then served as principal of Lancaster High School 1874-75.
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Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
1292 - 1350 (58 years)
Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb az-Zurʿī d-Dimashqī l-Ḥanbalī , commonly known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya or Ibn al-Qayyim for short, or reverentially as Imam Ibn al-Qayyim in Sunni tradition, was an important medieval Islamic jurisconsult, theologian, and spiritual writer. Belonging to the Hanbali school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence, of which he is regarded as "one of the most important thinkers," Ibn al-Qayyim was also the foremost disciple and student of Ibn Taymiyyah, with whom he was imprisoned in 1326 for dissenting against established tradition during Ib...
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Karl Hase
1800 - 1890 (90 years)
Karl August von Hase was a German Protestant theologian and church historian. Background He was born at Steinbach in Saxony. He studied at Leipzig and Erlangen, and in 1829 was called to Jena as professor of theology. He retired in 1883 and was made a baron. He was the great-grandfather of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
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James Buchanan
1804 - 1870 (66 years)
James Buchanan was a preacher and theological writer. He was born in 1804 at Paisley, and studied at the university of Glasgow. In 1827 he was ordained Church of Scotland minister of Roslin, near Edinburgh, and in 1828 he was translated to the large and important charge of North Leith. In this charge he attained great fame as a preacher, being remarkable or a clear, vigorous, and flowing style, a graceful manner, a vein of thrilling tenderness, broken from time to time by passionate appeals, all in the most pronounced evangelic strain. In 1840 Buchanan was translated to the High Church , Edinburgh, and in 1843, after the disruption, he became first minister of St.
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Theodosius Harnack
1817 - 1889 (72 years)
Theodosius Andreas Harnack was a Baltic German theologian. A professor of Divinity, he started his career as a Privatdozent for church history and homiletics at the University of Dorpat in 1843, he was further appointed university preacher in 1847. Since 1848 he held an ordinary chair as professor for practical and systematic theology. Between 1853 and 1866 Harnack was professor at Frederick Alexander University in Erlangen, Bavaria, German Confederation .
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Donald Barnhouse
1895 - 1960 (65 years)
Donald Grey Barnhouse , was an American Christian preacher, pastor, theologian, radio pioneer, and writer. He was pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1927 to his death in 1960. As a pioneer in radio broadcasting, his program, The Bible Study Hour, continues today and is now known as Dr. Barnhouse & the Bible.
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John of Shanghai and San Francisco
1896 - 1966 (70 years)
John of Shanghai and San Francisco was a prominent Eastern Orthodox ascetic and hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia who was active in the mid-20th century. He was a pastor and spiritual father of high reputation and a reputed wonderworker to whom were attributed powers of prophecy, clairvoyance and healing. He is often referred to as "St. John the Wonderworker".
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Joseph Henry Thayer
1828 - 1901 (73 years)
Joseph Henry Thayer was an American Biblical scholar from Boston, Massachusetts. Life Joseph Henry Thayer was born in 1828 in Boston. He graduated from Harvard University in 1850 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1857. From 1858 to 1864 he served as a pastor—first in Quincy, Massachusetts, then in Salem—and served as a chaplain of the 40th Massachusetts Volunteers in the Civil War. After the war, he returned to Massachusetts to become Professor of Sacred Literature at Andover Theological Seminary, where he taught until 1882. In 1884, he began teaching New Testament criticism at Harvard.
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Vincent Ferrer
1350 - 1419 (69 years)
Vincent Ferrer, OP was a Valencian Dominican friar and preacher, who gained acclaim as a missionary and a logician. He is honored as a saint of the Catholic Church and other churches of Catholic traditions.
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Martín de Azpilcueta
1492 - 1586 (94 years)
Martín de Azpilcueta , or Doctor Navarrus, was an important Spanish canonist and theologian in his time, and an early economist who independently formulated the quantity theory of money in 1556. Life He was born in Barásoain, Navarre, and was a relative of Francis Xavier. He obtained a degree in theology at Alcalá, then in 1518 he obtained a degree of doctor in canon law from Toulouse in France. Beginning in 1524, Azpilcueta served in several canon law chairs at the University of Salamanca. From 1538 to 1556, he taught at Coimbra University in Portugal, at the invitation of the kings of Portu...
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Harris Franklin Rall
1870 - 1964 (94 years)
Harris Franklin Rall , Ph.D. was the first president of Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado after it reopened in 1910 till 1915, and he also served as the Henry White Warren professor of Practical Theology. Rall later became president of Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois, and taught theology there. Rall was active in the social gospel movement, seeking to relate Christianity to the ills of society. Garrett named its lecture series after him.
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Leonidas Proaño
1910 - 1988 (78 years)
Leonidas Eduardo Proaño Villalba was an Ecuadorian prelate and theologian. He served as the bishop of Riobamba from 1954 to 1985. He was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize and is considered one of the most important figures in Ecuadorian liberation theology.
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Hermann Hupfeld
1796 - 1866 (70 years)
Hermann Hupfeld was a Protestant German Orientalist and Biblical commentator. He is known for his historical-critical studies of the Old Testament. He was born at Marburg, where he studied philosophy and theology from 1813 to 1817. In 1819 he became a teacher in the gymnasium at Hanau, but in 1822 resigned that appointment. After studying for some time at Halle, he in 1824 settled as Privatdozent in philosophy at that university, and in the following year was appointed extraordinary professor of theology at Marburg. There he received professorships of theology and Oriental languages in 1825 and 1827 respectively.
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Frederick Temple
1821 - 1902 (81 years)
Frederick Temple was an English academic, teacher and churchman, who served as Bishop of Exeter , Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury . Early life Temple was born in Santa Maura, one of the Ionian Islands, the son of Major Octavius Temple, who was subsequently appointed lieutenant-governor of Sierra Leone. On his retirement, Major Temple settled in Devon and contemplated a farming life for his son Frederick, giving him a practical training to that end.
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John Duncan
1796 - 1870 (74 years)
John Duncan , also known as 'Rabbi' Duncan, was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, a missionary to the Jews in Hungary, and Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at New College, Edinburgh. He is best remembered for his aphorisms.
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Johannes Heinrich August Ebrard
1818 - 1888 (70 years)
Johannes Heinrich August Ebrard was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Born at Erlangen, he was educated in his native town and at Berlin, and after teaching in a private family became Privatdozent at Erlangen and then professor of theology at Zürich . In 1847 he was appointed professor of theology at Erlangen, a chair which he resigned in 1861; in 1875 he became pastor of the French reformed church in the same city.
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Isaac Backus
1724 - 1806 (82 years)
Isaac Backus was a leading Baptist minister during the era of the American Revolution who campaigned against state-established churches in New England. Little is known of his childhood. In "An account of the life of Isaac Backus" , he provides genealogical information and a chronicle of events leading to his religious conversion.
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Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen
1670 - 1739 (69 years)
Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen was a theologian of the pietist Halle School and a scholar and follower of August Hermann Francke. He was the second director of the Franckeschen Stiftungen, a collection of schools for orphans.
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Pope Stephen II
714 - 757 (43 years)
Pope Stephen II was born a Roman aristocrat and member of the Orsini family. Stephen was the bishop of Rome from 26 March 752 to his death. Stephen II marks the historical delineation between the Byzantine Papacy and the Frankish Papacy. During Stephen's pontificate, Rome was facing invasion by the Lombards when Stephen II went to Paris to seek assistance from Pepin the Short. Pepin defeated the Lombards and made a gift of land to the pope, eventually leading to the establishment of the Papal States.
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Edwards Amasa Park
1808 - 1900 (92 years)
Edwards Amasa Park was an American Congregational theologian. Biography Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Park was the son of Calvin Park . Edwards Amasa Park graduated at Brown University in 1826, was a teacher at Braintree for two years, and in 1831 graduated from Andover Theological Seminary. He was co-pastor of the orthodox Congregational church of Braintree in 1831-1833; professor of mental and moral philosophy at Amherst in 1835; and Bartlet professor of sacred rhetoric , and Abbot professor of Christian theology at Andover. He died at Andover on 4 June 1900.
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Francis Crawford Burkitt
1864 - 1935 (71 years)
Francis Crawford Burkitt was an English theologian. As Norris Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1905 until shortly before his death, Burkitt was a sturdy critic of the notion of a distinct "Caesarean Text" of the New Testament put forward by B. H. Streeter and others.
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Johann August Ernesti
1707 - 1781 (74 years)
Johann August Ernesti was a German Rationalist theologian and philologist. Ernesti was the first who formally separated the hermeneutics of the Old Testament from those of the New. Biography Ernesti was born in Tennstedt in present-day Thuringia, where his father, Johann Christoph Ernesti, was pastor, besides being superintendent of the electoral dioceses of Thuringia, Salz and Sangerhausen. At the age of sixteen, Ernesti was sent to the celebrated Saxon cloister school of Pforta . At twenty he entered the University of Wittenberg, and studied afterwards at the University of Leipzig. In 1730 he was made master in the faculty of philosophy.
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Nicholas Afanasiev
1893 - 1966 (73 years)
Nikolay Nikolayevich Afanasiev was an Eastern Orthodox theologian who was ordinary professor of the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. Afanasiev was born in Odessa, in the Russian Empire. He fought with the White Russian Army, and then studied in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia before going to France. He lectured at St. Sergius for ten years before being ordained a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1940, whereupon he served in Tunisia until 1947. He then returned to St Sergius, where he served until his death.
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Franz Volkmar Reinhard
1753 - 1812 (59 years)
Franz Volkmar Reinhard was a German Protestant theologian born in Vohenstrauß. Biography In 1780 he became an associate professor of theology and philosophy at the University of Wittenberg, where he served as rector in 1790–91. In 1792 he was appointed Oberhofprediger to the Saxon court in Dresden.
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Martin Luther King Sr.
1899 - 1984 (85 years)
Martin Luther King Sr. was an African-American Baptist pastor, missionary, and an early figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the father and namesake of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He was the senior pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1931 to 1975.
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Ezra Stiles
1727 - 1795 (68 years)
Ezra Stiles was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College and one of the founders of Brown University. According to religious historian Timothy L. Hall, Stiles' tenure at Yale distinguishes him as "one of the first great American college presidents."
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Friedrich von Hügel
1852 - 1925 (73 years)
Friedrich von Hügel was an influential Austrian Catholic layman, religious writer, and Christian apologist. Although classified with Modernistss due to his friendships with Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell, von Hügel rejected the Modernist theory of belief.
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Nicholas of Lyra
1270 - 1349 (79 years)
Nicholas of Lyra , or Nicolaus Lyranus, a Franciscan teacher, was among the most influential practitioners of biblical exegesis in the Middle Ages. Little is known about his youth, aside from the fact of his birth, around 1270, in Lyre, Normandy.
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Johann Konrad Dippel
1673 - 1734 (61 years)
Johann Konrad Dippel, also spelled Johann Conrad Dippel , was a German Pietist theologian, physician, alchemist and occultist. Life Dippel was born at Castle Frankenstein near Mühltal and Darmstadt, and therefore once at his school the addendum Franckensteinensis and once at his university the addendum Franckensteina-Strataemontanus was used.
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Anselm of Laon
1050 - 1117 (67 years)
Anselm of Laon , properly Ansel , was a French theologian and founder of a school of scholars who helped to pioneer biblical hermeneutics. Biography Born of very humble parents at Laon before the middle of the 11th century, he is said to have studied under Saint Anselm at Bec, though this is almost certainly incorrect. Other potential teachers of Anselm have been identified, including Bruno of Cologne and Manegold of Lautenbach. By around 1080, he had moved back to his place of birth and was teaching at the cathedral school of Laon, with his brother Ralph. Around 1109, he became dean and chancellor of the cathedral, and in 1115 he was one of Laon's two archdeacons.
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James Denney
1856 - 1917 (61 years)
James Denney was a Scottish theologian and preacher. He is probably best known today for his theological articulation of the meaning of the atonement within Christian theology, atonement for him being “the most profound of all truths”. Many have misunderstood his position, arguing that he was known for his defense of the doctrine of penal substitution. However, Denny himself protested vigorously against this characterization.
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William Vorilong
1390 - 1463 (73 years)
William Vorilong, also known as Guillermus Vorrilong, Willem of Verolon, William of Vaurouillon, Guilelmus de Valle Rouillonis, etc. was a French philosopher and theologian. He wrote a biography of Duns Scotus. From 1457 onwards he was a regent master in Lyon, becoming licentiate and master of theology at Lyon in 1458.
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Joseph Sittler
1904 - 1987 (83 years)
Joseph Andrew Sittler was an American Lutheran minister and theologian who taught at Maywood Seminary, eventually merged into the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He was also active in the Christian ecumenical movement, working with World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches.
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Franz Hermann Reinhold von Frank
1827 - 1894 (67 years)
Franz Hermann Reinhold von Frank was a German theologian born in Altenburg. He was an important figure in the "Erlangen School" of the German Neo-Lutheranism movement, and a specialist in theological dogmatics.
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John Tulloch
1823 - 1886 (63 years)
John Tulloch was a Scottish theologian. Life Tulloch was born at Dron, south of Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, one of twin sons of Elizabeth , the daughter of a Perthshire farmer, and William Weir Tulloch, parish minister of Tibbermore, near Perth.
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Franz Hettinger
1819 - 1890 (71 years)
Franz Hettinger was a German Catholic theologian. Life He attended the gymnasium in his native city and afterwards, from 1836 to 1839, the academy in the same city, where he finished philosophy and began theology. As the teaching of the latter science was discontinued in this academy in 1839, he entered the ecclesiastical seminary at Würzburg and continued his studies there from the autumn of 1839 to that of 1841.
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Joseph Clifford Fenton
1906 - 1969 (63 years)
Joseph Clifford Fenton was a Catholic priest who promoted conservative theology. He was a professor of fundamental dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America and editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review . A strong opponent of liberal beliefs, he was a significant American Catholic theologian of the 20th century. He served as a peritus for Cardinal Ottaviani at the Second Vatican Council, where his position was overruled. He was also secretary of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
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Pierre Jurieu
1637 - 1713 (76 years)
Pierre Jurieu was a French Protestant leader. Life He was born at Mer, in Orléanais, where his father was a Protestant pastor. He studied at the Academy of Saumur and the Academy of Sedan under his grandfather, Pierre Du Moulin, and under Leblanc de Beaulieu. After completing his studies in the Netherlands and England, Jurieu was ordained as an Anglican priest; returning to France he was ordained again and succeeded his father as pastor of the church at Mer. Soon after this he published his first work, Examen de livre de la reunion du Christianisme . In 1674 his Traité de la dévotion led to ...
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Andreas Gottlob Rudelbach
1792 - 1862 (70 years)
Andreas Gottlob Rudelbach was a Dano-German neo-Lutheran theologian. Biography He was born at Copenhagen; died at Slagelse, Zealand. He was educated the Metropolitanskolen and attended the University of Copenhagen, where he received the academic title privatdozent. During this period in collaboration with N. F. S. Grundtvig, he edited the Theologisk Maanedskrift In 1829 he was called to the pastorate of Glauchau, Saxony, where he aided religious awakening and revolt against the rationalism of the period, though at the same time he opposed any formal separation from the Lutheran Church.
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Henry of Ghent
1217 - 1293 (76 years)
Henry of Ghent was a scholastic philosopher, known as Doctor Solemnis , and also as Henricus de Gandavo and Henricus Gandavensis. Life Henry was born in the district of Mude, near Ghent. He is supposed to have belonged to an Italian family named Bonicolli, in Dutch Goethals, but the question of his name has been much discussed . He studied at Ghent and then at Cologne under Albertus Magnus. After obtaining the degree of doctor he returned to Ghent, and is said to have been the first to lecture there publicly on philosophy and theology.
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Alexander Men
1935 - 1990 (55 years)
Alexander Vladimirovich Men was a Soviet Russian Orthodox priest, dissident, theologian, biblical scholar and writer on theology, Christian history and other religions. Men wrote dozens of books ; baptized hundreds if not thousands; founded an Orthodox open university; opened one of the first Sunday schools in Russia as well as a charity group at the Russian Children's Hospital. His influence is still widely felt and his legacy continues to grow among Christians both in Russia and abroad. He was murdered early on a Sunday morning, on 9 September 1990, by an ax-wielding assailant outside his h...
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