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,
#3801
Georg Seyler
1800 - 1866 (66 years)
Georg August Wilhelm Seyler was a German theologian and priest, and the adoptive father of Felix Hoppe-Seyler, the principal founder of biochemistry and molecular biology. Biography Georg Seyler was a son of the court pharmacist Abel Seyler the Younger and Caroline Klügel, and was a grandson of the famous theatre principal Abel Seyler and of the mathematician and physicist Georg Simon Klügel. He belonged to the originally Swiss Seyler family from Liestal and Basel. He was a nephew of the prominent Hamburg banker Ludwig Erdwin Seyler and of the Sturm und Drang poet Johann Anton Leisewitz.
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Achille Gagliardi
1537 - 1607 (70 years)
Achille Gagliardi was a Jesuit ascetic writer and spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition. Life Gagliardi was born at Padua, Italy. After a brilliant career at the University of Padua he entered the Society of Jesus in 1559 with two brothers younger than himself. He taught philosophy at the Roman College, theology at Padua and Milan, and successfully directed several houses of his order in Northern Italy. He displayed indefatigable zeal in preaching, giving retreats and directing congregations, and was held in great esteem as a theologian and spiritual guide by the Archbishop of Milan, ...
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Johann Jahn
1750 - 1816 (66 years)
Johann Jahn was a German orientalist. Biography He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of University of Olomouc, and in 1772 began his theological studies at the Premonstratensian convent of Bruck, near Znaim. Having been ordained in 1775, he for a short time held a cure at Misslitz, but was soon recalled to Bruck as professor of Oriental languages and Biblical hermeneutics.
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Johann Pistorius the Elder
1504 - 1583 (79 years)
Johann Pistorius was a German Protestant minister and Protestant reformer. From 1541 he was the Superintendent at the church in Nidda in Hesse. Along with Philipp Melanchthon and Martin Bucer, Pistorius was appointed by Charles V to represent the Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg in 1541. He also participated in the Colloquy of Worms in 1557.
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Honoratus a Sancta Maria
1651 - 1729 (78 years)
Honoratus a Sancta Maria was a French Discalced Carmelite, known as a prolific controversialist. His secular name was Blaise Vauxelles , and he was known also by the French version of his name in religion, Honoré de Sainte-Marie.
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Lawrence Humphrey
1527 - 1590 (63 years)
Lawrence Humphrey DD was an English theologian, who was President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Dean successively of Gloucester and Winchester. Biography Humphrey was born at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England. He was first educated at the University of Cambridge.
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Henry Nutcombe Oxenham
1829 - 1888 (59 years)
Henry Nutcombe Oxenham was an English ecclesiologist, theologian, author and translator. Originally ordained in the Church of England, he later converted to the Roman Catholic faith and was received into that Church.
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Serafino Porrecta
1536 - 1614 (78 years)
Serafino Porrecta was an Italian Dominican theologian. His family name was Capponi; he was called a Porrecta from his place of birth. He is best known as a commentator on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; he also wrote commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments.
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Matthieu Petit-Didier
1659 - 1728 (69 years)
Matthieu Petit-Didier was a French Benedictine theologian and ecclesiastical historian. Life After studying at the Jesuit college at Nancy he joined the Benedictine Congregation of St-Vannes, in 1675, at the monastery of St-Mihiel. In 1682 he was appointed professor of philosophy and theology.
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Henry Hickman
1629 - 1692 (63 years)
Henry Hickman was an English ejected minister and controversialist. Life A native of Worcestershire, he was educated at St Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1648. At the end of 1647, he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and the next year obtained by favour of the parliamentary visitors a demyship and subsequently a fellowship of Magdalen College. After graduating M.A. on 14 March 1649, he was licensed as a preacher and officiated at St Aldate's Church in Oxford and afterwards at Brackley in Northamptonshire. On 29 May 1658, he was admitted B.D.
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Benjamin Pâquet
1832 - 1900 (68 years)
Benjamin Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and educator. He was an influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultra-montane elite of the period. Three times his name was cited for potential bishopry, but each time his opponents successfully lobbied against his nomination or the decision makers settled on a less controversial choice.
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Henry Hayes Vowles
1843 - 1905 (62 years)
Henry Hayes Vowles was an English author, theologian and a Wesleyan Minister. He also published religious poetry. Parents He was the son of Henry Vowles of Bath and Mary Yeoman Harding of "The Chancellor" Wanstrow, Somerset. The parents of Henry Vowles were James Vowles of 2 Quiet Street Bath, and Martha Edney . James Vowles was the son of William Vowles of Walcot and Hannah Hancock. William Vowles was the son of James Vowles and Martha Jane married at Bath Abbey on 6 August 1728.
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John Harry Miller
1869 - Present (157 years)
John Harry Miller FRSE CBE was a Scottish minister and theologian who served as Principal of St Mary's College at St Andrews University. Life He was born on 4 November 1869 at 1 Clayton Terrace in Westercraigs in Glasgow the son of John Ritchie Miller of McHaffie, Forsyth & Miller, ironfounders, and his wife Georgina Caird. He was educated at the Albany Academy.
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Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi
1886 - 1941 (55 years)
Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi was a prominent Estonian prelate and politician who served as Minister for Education in the Estonian government between 1924 and 1925 and later as Bishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1934 till 1939.
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Charles H. Stonestreet
1813 - 1885 (72 years)
Charles Henry Stonestreet was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who served in prominent religious and academic positions, including as provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland Province and president of Georgetown University. He was born in Maryland and attended Georgetown University, where he co-founded the Philodemic Society. After entering the Society of Jesus and becoming a professor at Georgetown, he led St. John's Literary Institution and St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Maryland. He was appointed president of Georgetown University in 1851, holding the office for two years, during which time he oversaw expansion of the university's library.
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Gerald Fitzgerald
1894 - 1969 (75 years)
Gerald Michael Cushing Fitzgerald, s.P. was an American Catholic priest known for founding the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, which operates centers for priests dealing with challenges such as alcoholism, substance abuse and sexual misconduct.
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Isaac Nordheimer
1809 - 1842 (33 years)
Isaac Nordheimer was a Jewish American Hebrew scholar who also studied Syriac and other Near East languages. He is notable as an early Jewish scholar in the United States, as well as being a linguist who was also educated in the Rabbinic tradition.
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Christoph Wölfflin
1625 - 1688 (63 years)
Christoph Wölfflin was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Life Christoph Wölfflin was born in Würtemberg, either at Owen, or at Kirchheim unter Teck, on 23 December 1625. He moved to Tübingen and studied at the university there, was in 1651 deacon at Aurach, in 1657 at Tübingen, in 1659 professor of Greek, and in 1660 was made doctor and professor of theology.
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Marutha of Tikrit
565 - 649 (84 years)
Marutha of Tikrit was the Grand Metropolitan of the East and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church of the East from 628 or 629 until his death in 649. He is commemorated as a saint by the Syriac Orthodox Church.
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Lewis Bevens Schenck
1898 - 1985 (87 years)
Lewis Bevens Schenck was an American theologian. He is best known for his 1940 work, The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America, in which he examined the doctrine of covenant succession. Robert S. Rayburn notes that Schenck "accounts for the modern eclipse of the Reformed doctrine of covenant succession by the dramatic impact of the Great Awakening and the resultant revivalismism." However, according to Thomas Trouwborst, Schenck's book has led to a revival of the "historic Presbyterian...
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Gregory Paul of Brzeziny
1525 - 1591 (66 years)
Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin , was a Socinian writer and theologian, one of the principal creators and propagators of radical wing of the Polish Brethren, and author of several of the first theological works in Polish, which helped to the development of literary Polish.
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Jean Nicolaï
1594 - 1673 (79 years)
Jean Nicolaï was a French Dominican theologian and controversialist. About Entering the order at the age of twelve, he made his religious profession in 1612, studied philosophy and theology in the convent of St. James at Paris. and in 1632 obtained his doctorate in theology at the Sorbonne. Nicolaï taught in various houses of the Dominican order, and became the regent of the Paris Dominicans. Besides Latin and Greek he was conversant with Italian, Spanish, and Hebrew.
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Marcus Eremita
360 - 430 (70 years)
Marcus Eremita, Mark the Ascetic or Marcus the Ascetic was a Christian theologian, saint, and ascetic writer of the fifth century AD. Mark is rather an ascetic than a dogmatic writer. He is content to accept dogmas from the Church; his interest is in the spiritual life as it should be led by monks. He is practical rather than mystic, belongs to the Antiochene School and shows himself to be a disciple of John Chrysostom.
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Ernst Teichmann
1869 - 1919 (50 years)
Ernst Gustav Georg Teichmann was a German theologian and zoologist known for his investigations in the field of the tsetse fly and for his books on birth, fertilisation, heredity and death. Life and work He studied theology in Lausanne, Giessen, Berlin and Marburg, obtaining his license in theology at Bonn in 1896. From 1898 to 1900, he studied zoology at the University of Würzburg, afterwards continuing his education in zoology at Naples and Marburg. In 1909–10 he worked at the Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg, and from 1911 onward, served as a hydrozoologist and departmental head at the institute for hygiene in Frankfurt.
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Thomas of Edessa
Thomas of Edessa was a theologian of the Church of the East who wrote several works in Syriac, most of them lost. Thomas was educated in Edessa. There he taught Greek to the future patriarch, Aba. He later travelled with Aba around the Roman Empire, including to its capital, Constantinople. He studied under Aba at the school of Nisibis in the Persian Empire. He also taught at Nisibis. He may have died in Constantinople or on his return journey to Nisibis.
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Christopher Anderson
1782 - 1852 (70 years)
Christopher Anderson was a Scottish theological writer and preacher. Biography He was born at Edinburgh, 19 February 1782, the son of William Anderson, a merchant. He began life in an insurance office, but gave up his secular work and studied for the ministry, with the aim of becoming a missionary: his background was formed by followers of Robert and James Haldane. Weak health prevented his accepting a missionary appointment, and he then became minister of a small congregation in Edinburgh, known as "English Baptists", at the Charlotte Chapel. He held this post until shortly before his deat...
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Charles W. Lyons
1868 - 1939 (71 years)
Charles William Lyons was an American Catholic priest who became the only Jesuit and likely the only educator in the United States to have served as the president of four colleges. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he attended the local public schools before entering the wool industry. He abandoned his career in industry to enter the Society of Jesus. While a novice in Maryland, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to Georgetown University as prefect. He then resumed his studies at Woodstock College, teaching intermittently at Gonzaga College in Washington, D.C. and Loyola College in Baltimore.
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Antonius Hulsius
1615 - 1685 (70 years)
Antonius Hulsius was a German philologist and Calvinist theologian. Life Hulsius was born towards the end of 1615 at Hilden, a midsized manufacturing town in the hill-country east of Düsseldorf, at a time when Lutheran Protestantism had recently been supplanted by Calvinist Protestantism as the mainstream religion of the townsfolk, while the local lord was still adhering to the Catholicism of his forefathers. It was a period of intense religious conflict in the Rhineland, and the life of Antonius Hulsius would be deeply impacted by the Thirty Years' War . His father, also called Antonius Hulsius, was the local mayor.
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Ferdinand Weerth
1774 - 1836 (62 years)
Ferdinand Weerth was a German pastor and school-reformer in the Principality of Lippe. Between 1805 and 1836 he officiated as the general superintendent of the Reformed Church of Lippe. One of his sons was the writer Georg Weerth.
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Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh
1606 - 1677 (71 years)
Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh was a Franciscan friar, theologian and grammarian, author of the first published grammar of the Irish language written in Latin, c. 1606–1677. Biography Early life Ó Maolmhuaidh was born in the Diocese of Meath, most probably in the district of Fercall, lordship of The Ó Maolmhuaidh, in what was then called King's County. While his exact place within the Ó Maolmhuaidh family is unknown, he recorded stories heard in his youth "of a great Christmas banquet for 960 people, lasting twelve days, held by Calvagh O'Molloy, chief of his name, at the end of the sixteenth centu...
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Durand of Huesca
1160 - 1224 (64 years)
Durand of Huesca was a Spanish Waldensian, who converted in 1207 to Catholicism. Durand had been a disciple of Peter Waldo, who had been excommunicated in 1184. Around the early 1190s Durand wrote Liber Antihaeresis against the Cathars, which is considered perhaps the best primary source on early Waldensian thought.
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Johannes Müller
1864 - 1949 (85 years)
Johannes Müller was an unconventional German Protestant theologian. Life Provenance and early years Johannes Müller was born in Riesa, a small town located a short distance down-river from Dresden. He was born into a revivalist family. His parents had met in a pietist community.
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Edmund Bunny
1540 - 1619 (79 years)
Edmund Bunny was an Anglican churchman of Calvinist views. Life He was born in 1540 at the Vache, the seat of Edward Restwold, his mother's father, near Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. He was the eldest son of Richard Bunny of Newton or Bunny Hall in Wakefield parish, who was treasurer of Berwick, and otherwise employed in public services in the north, under Henry VIII and Edward VI; he suffered as a Protestant under Mary, and obtained some compensation from Elizabeth .
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William May
1505 - 1560 (55 years)
William May , also known as William Meye, was Dean of the Order of the British Empire. He was nominated Archbishop of York in 1560, but died before he could take office. William May was the brother of John May, bishop of Carlisle. He was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, and in 1537, president of Queens' College. May heartily supported the Reformation, signed the Ten Articles in 1536, and helped in the production of The Institution of a Christian Man. He had close connection with the diocese of Ely, being successively chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary. In 154...
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Alexander Bonini
1268 - 1314 (46 years)
Alexander Bonini was an Italian Franciscan philosopher, who became Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor. He taught at the University of Paris. A prolific writer, he is now remembered most for his Tractatus de Usuris. It is especially notable for its subtle treatment of the pricing of contracts involving risks; for example it writes of life annuities, 'we see men and women twenty-five years old buying life annuities for a price such that within eight years they will receive their stake back; and although they may live less than those eight years, it is more probable that they will live twice that.
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François Delfau
1637 - 1676 (39 years)
François Delfau was a French Benedictine theologian, an authority on patristic theology. Life He joined the Order of St. Benedict when he was seventeen years of age, and made his solemn profession at the Abbey of St. Allire, 2 May 1656. He was a student of the Fathers of the Church and the history of the councils.
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Ernst Zimmermann
1786 - 1832 (46 years)
Ernst Christoph Philipp Zimmermann was a German classical philologist and theologian. He was the brother of theologian Karl Zimmermann . He studied at the Darmstadt gymnasium as a pupil of historian Helfrich Bernhard Wenck, and afterwards furthered his education at the University of Giessen . In 1805 he became a clergyman in the community of Auerbach , then in 1809 was named deacon in Gross-Gerau and pastor in nearby Büttelborn. In 1814 he was appointed court deacon at the Hofkirche in Darmstadt, where two years later he became a court preacher. In 1831 he attained the titles of prelate, eccl...
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William Norman Guthrie
1868 - 1944 (76 years)
William Norman Guthrie also known as Norman de Lagutry was an American clergyman and grandson of famous radical Frances Wright. His father, Eugène Picault de Lagutry, was the husband of Frances Sylva Piquepal d'Arusmont, the daughter of Frances Wright.
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Abner Jackson
1811 - 1874 (63 years)
Abner Jackson was an American minister and teacher and President of Hobart College in Geneva, New York from 1858 to 1867 and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut from 1867 until his death, where he had originally studied and taught. At Trinity in the 1840s and 1850s he was Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. Whilst president of Hobart he was responsible for changing the name from Hobart Free College to honor its original founder, Bishop John Henry Hobart, and was responsible for much fundraising. In 1863, he raised the funds to build the St. John's Chapel.
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Gaspar Hurtado
1575 - 1647 (72 years)
Gaspar Hurtado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He studied at the University of Alcalá de Henares, where in the examination for the doctorate he won the highest place from numerous competitors. He was at once appointed professor in the university, and was winning fame as a lecturer, when at the age of 32, he resigned his chair and entered the Society of Jesus .
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Konrad Hubert
1507 - 1577 (70 years)
Konrad Hubert, also Konrad Huber, Konrad Huober, or Konrad Humbert , was a German Reformed theologian, hymn writer and reformer. He was for 18 years the assistant of Martin Bucer at St. Thomas, Strasbourg.
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Chaim Heller
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Rabbi Chaim Heller was a prominent Talmudist and Targumic scholar who combined traditional rabbinic erudition with expertise in modern textual research. He was renowned for his genius and command of ancient languages. He was posthumously awarded the Rabbi Kook Prize for Rabbinical literature in 2007.
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John C. Young
1803 - 1857 (54 years)
John Clarke Young was an American educator and pastor who was the fourth president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate of Dickinson College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he entered the ministry in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1828. He accepted the presidency of Centre College in 1830, holding the position until his death in 1857, making him the longest-serving president in the college's history. He is regarded as one of the college's best presidents, as he increased the endowment of the college more than five-fold during his term and increased the graduating class size from t...
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William de Montibus
1140 - 1213 (73 years)
William de Montibus was a theologian and teacher. He travelled to Paris in the 1160s, where he studied under Peter Comestor, eventually opening his own school on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. He was appointed by Hugh of Lincoln as master of the cathedral school in Lincoln, England in the 1180s, where his lectures drew students from around the country. He was also chancellor of the cathedral by 1194, and remained in both positions until his death in 1213. He was the instructor of Alexander Neckam in Paris, and in Lincoln taught Samuel Presbiter and Richard of Wetheringsett.
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John of Segovia
1395 - 1458 (63 years)
John of Segovia, or in Spanish Juan de Segovia , was a Castilian prelate and theologian. He played a prominent role in the Council of Basle and was in touch with the leading humanists of his day, such as Nicholas of Cusa. He spent the last years of his life in exile in Savoy, where he commissioned an accurate translation of the Koran into Spanish, which he then translated into Latin.
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Frederik Christian von Haven
1727 - 1763 (36 years)
Frederik Christian von Haven was a Danish philologist and theologian who took part in the Danish expedition to Yemen. Biography Background and early life Frederik von Haven was born on 26 June 1728 in the rectory of Vester Skerninge on the Danish island of Funen, where his father Lambert von Haven was a priest, and christened on 3 July in the Church of Our Lady in Odense. His mother was Maren, née Wielandt. He had three sisters; he was especially close to Pernille Elisabeth von Haven, who never married.
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Hezekiah Burton
1632 - 1681 (49 years)
Hezekiah Burton was an English theologian. Life He was educated in Sutton-on-Lound and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow. He was an associate of a number of intellectual figures of the day, in particular Richard Cumberland whose De legibus naturae he edited and to which he contributed an Address to the Reader. He is mentioned in Pepys's Diary. He was chaplain to Orlando Bridgeman, and used the contact to support Cumberland.
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Mitrofan Lodyzhensky
1852 - 1917 (65 years)
Mitrofan Vasilyevich Lodyzhensky was a Russian religious philosopher, playwright, and statesman, best known for his Mystical Trilogy comprising Super-consciousness and the Ways to Achieve It, Light Invisible, and Dark Force.
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William Leitch
1814 - 1864 (50 years)
William Leitch was a Scottish astronomer, naturalist and mathematician, and a minister of the Church of Scotland. Leitch studied mathematics and science at the University of Glasgow, and moved to Canada in 1860 to take the post of principal at Queen's University.
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Petrus Opmeer
1526 - 1595 (69 years)
Petrus Opmeer was a Dutch Catholic historian and controversialist. According to his biographer Valerius Andreas, Opmeer was a friend of "painters, sculptors and architects", including Maarten van Heemskerck, Pieter Aertsen, Willem Danielsz van Tetrode, Frans Floris, Antonis Mor and Philip Galle.
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