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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#1851

Filippo Santoro

Filippo Santoro

#171549

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Filippo Santoro is an Italian Roman Catholic prelate. He was made archbishop of Taranto in 2011. In 2023, he resigned as archbishop

#1852

John Barwick

#154381

Overall Influence

John Barwick was an English theologian. Life Barwick took his name from Berwick, where he appears to have been born or brought up. From Berwick he seems to have removed to the Franciscan schools at Oxford, at which university he became a Doctor of Theology, and is enumerated as the twenty-second reader of divinity belonging to that order in the early years of the fourteenth century. He appears to have studied at Paris likewise; for we are told by Dempster and Bale that he also went by the name of Breulanlius; and this Breulanlius is mentioned towards the end of the fifteenth century by the al...

#1853

Jean Margain

#173726

Overall Influence

1931 - 2012 (81 years)

Jean Margain was a French Hebraist. He is known by his Semitic and Samaritan studies. Life Education Margain got his Doctor of Arts in 1988 with his thesis Les particules dans le Targum samaritain de Genèse-Exode: jalons pour une histoire de l'araméen samaritain at Université Paris III.

#1854

ʻAlí-Muhammad Varqá

#86340

Overall Influence

1912 - 2007 (95 years)

ʻAlí-Muhammad Varqá was a prominent adherent of the Baháʼí Faith. He was the longest surviving Hand of the Cause of God, an appointed position in the Baháʼí Faith whose main function is to propagate and protect the religion on the international level.

#1855

Eduard Nielsen

#192235

Overall Influence

1923 - 2017 (94 years)

Eduard Mikael V. Nielsen was a Danish theologian. He was a professor at the University of Copenhagen from 1956 to 1991. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1987.

#1856

John Meehan

#177659

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

John Meehan SJ is a Canadian Jesuit priest, historian and academic. He is Director of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at Trinity College, University of Toronto. He was president and vice-chancellor of the University of Sudbury in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada from September 2019 until 2021. He was formerly rector of the Church of the Gesù in Montreal and president of Campion College in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

#1857

Inés Talamantez

#110119

Overall Influence

Inés M. Talamantez was an ethnographer and scholar of religion. She was professor of religious studies at University of California, Santa Barbara . She was an expert on Native American religion and philosophy.

#1858

Juan Ignacio Larrea Holguín

#27011

Overall Influence

1927 - 2006 (79 years)

Juan Ignacio Larrea Holguín , was archbishop of Guayaquil for ten years, and the first member of the prelature of Opus Dei in Ecuador. He was also a distinguished lawyer, frequently consulted about Ecuadorian Civil law and the author of more than 60 books about jurisprudence.

#1859

Anne van der Meiden

#160920

Overall Influence

1929 - 2021 (92 years)

Anne van der Meiden was a Dutch theologian, translator, and professor at Utrecht University. He translated the bible into Tweants dialect.

#1860

Julián Carrón

#99105

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Julián Carrón is a Spanish Catholic priest, and theologian and the former leader of the Italian Communion and Liberation movement.

#1861

Edvard Kovač

#129680

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Fr. Edvard Kovač is a Slovenian theologian, philosopher and author. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor and professor at the University of Ljubljana Theological Faculty and the Catholic University of Toulouse.

#1862

Bernadette Porter

#90088

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Sister Dr. Bernadette Mary Porter is a British Roman Catholic nun, educator and academic administrator. She was educated at Merrow Grange Grammar School , Digby Stuart College and King's College London . She served as Vice-Chancellor, Roehampton University from 1999 to 2004, having previously held various posts at Roehampton Institute.

#1863

José Antonio Dammert Bellido

#167618

Overall Influence

1917 - 2008 (91 years)

José Antonio Dammert Bellido was a Peruvian bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Bellido was born in Lima, Peru and ordained a priest on December 21, 1946. Bellido was appointed Auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Lima, along with Titular Bishop of Amathus in Palaestina, on April 14, 1958 and ordained bishop May 15, 1958. On March 15, 1962 he was appointed Bishop of Diocese of Cajamarca and would remain in post until his retirement on December 1, 1992.

#1864

Barhadbshabba of Hulwan

#188398

Overall Influence

Barḥadbshabba of Ḥulwān was a 7th-century theologian and Christian bishop of the Church of the East who wrote many religious works and a history of the School of Nisibis which is of historical interest.

#1865

Niels Jørgen Cappelørn

#130505

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Niels Jørgen Cappelørn is a Danish theologian, Søren Kierkegaard scholar and former director of Søren Kierkegaard Research Center at the University of Copenhagen. He has written and edited a number of books on Kierkegaard, and was editor of Index til Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, bind XIV-XVI . He was Director of the Danish Bible Society from 1980 to 1993.

#1866

Jorunn Økland

#130326

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Jorunn Økland is a Norwegian gender studies expert and biblical scholar with a background in Classics. She is currently Director at the Norwegian Institute at Athens and Professor of Gender Studies in the Humanities at the University of Oslo , and former Director of its Centre for Gender Research . Her fields of expertise are Pauline Studies, ancient mediterranean material culture, feminist critique of religion, gender and sacred texts, Bible translation, and cultural/secular uses of the Bible.

#1867

Richard of Campsall

#191317

Overall Influence

Richard of Campsall was an English theologian and scholastic philosopher, at the University of Oxford. He was a Fellow of Balliol College and then of Merton College. He is now considered a possible precursor to the views usually associated with William of Ockham.

#1868

John Trillo

#133012

Overall Influence

1915 - 1992 (77 years)

Albert John Trillo was a Church of England bishop. John Trillo grew up in Cricklewood, North London, and was educated at the Quintin School and King's College, London. On leaving school he worked in the film industry, for British Lion, and obtained his BA degree as a part-time student. He was ordained in 1938 and was a curate at Christ Church, Fulham before becoming the priest in charge of St Michael's, Cricklewood. From 1945 he worked for the Student Christian Movement, pioneering its work in Yorkshire grammar schools and becoming its secretary. From 1950-1955 he was rector of Friern Barn...

#1869

James Henley Thornwell

James Henley Thornwell

1812 - 1862 (50 years)

James Henley Thornwell was an American Presbyterian preacher, slaveowner, and religious writer from the U.S. state of South Carolina during the 19th century. During the American Civil War, Thornwell supported the Confederacy and preached a doctrine that claimed slavery to be morally right and justified by the tenets of Christianity. But contrary to many proponents of slavery, he preached that the African American population were people created in the image of God just like whites and that they should call slaves their brothers. He became prominent in the Old School Presbyterian denomination in the south, preaching and writing on theological and social issues.

#1870

Theodor Gangauf

1809 - 1875 (66 years)

Theodor Gangauf was a German Catholic theologian born in Bergen, Bavaria. He received his ordination in 1833, and in 1836 joined the Benedictine Order in Augsburg. From 1841 until his death in 1875 he was a professor of philosophy at the Lyceum at Augsburg. In the meantime , he also served as abbot at St. Stephen's Abbey.

#1871

William Wall

1647 - 1728 (81 years)

William Wall was a British priest in the Church of England who wrote extensively on the doctrine of infant baptism. He was generally an apologist for the English church and sought to maintain peace between it and the Anabaptists.

#1872

Bernhard Stade

1848 - 1906 (58 years)

Bernhard Stade was a German Protestant theologian and historian. Biography He studied at Leipzig and Berlin, and in course of time became professor ordinarius at Giessen. Once a member of Franz Delitzsch's class, he became a convinced adherent of the newest critical school. In 1881 he founded the Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, which he continued to edit; and his critical history of Israel made him very widely known.

#1873

Julius Schniewind

1883 - 1948 (65 years)

Julius Schniewind was a German evangelical theologian. He came to prominence in the 1930s as a leader of the Confessing Church , which can be seen as a movement within German Protestantism that arose during the Nazi years in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi Protestant Reich Church.

#1874

Joseph Ruggles Wilson

Joseph Ruggles Wilson

1822 - 1903 (81 years)

Joseph Ruggles Wilson Sr. was a prominent Presbyterian theologian and father of President Woodrow Wilson, Nashville Banner editor Joseph Ruggles Wilson Jr., and Anne E. Wilson Howe. In 1861, as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, he organized the General Assembly of the newly formed Presbyterian Church in the United States, known as the Southern Presbyterian Church, and served as its clerk for thirty-seven years.

#1875

Robert de Sorbon

Robert de Sorbon

1201 - 1274 (73 years)

Robert de Sorbon was a French theologian, the chaplain of Louis IX of France, and founder of the Sorbonne college in Paris. Biography Born into a poor family in Sorbon, in what is now the Ardennes département, Robert de Sorbon entered the Church and was educated in Reims and Paris. He was noted for his piety and attracted the patronage of the Comte d'Artois and King Louis IX of France, later known as Saint Louis. He became the canon of Cambrai around 1251 before being appointed canon of Paris and the king's confessor in 1258.

#1876

Harold C. Case

1902 - 1972 (70 years)

Harold Claude Case was an American academic administrator and Methodist preacher. He served as president of Boston University from 1951 to 1967 and was later named acting president of Whittier College.

#1877

Michel Le Quien

Michel Le Quien

1661 - 1733 (72 years)

Michel Le Quien was a French historian and theologian. He studied at Plessis College, Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made his profession in 1682. Excepting occasional short absences he never left Paris. At the time of his death he was librarian of the convent in Rue Saint-Honoré, a position which he had filled almost all his life, lending assistance to those who sought information on theology and ecclesiastical antiquity. Under the supervision of Père Marsollier he mastered the classical languages, Arabic and Hebrew, to the detriment, it...

#1878

Ludwig Hirzel

1801 - 1841 (40 years)

Ludwig Hirzel was a Swiss theologian born in Zürich. His son, also named Ludwig Hirzel , was a noted literary historian. Hirzel studied theology at the Carolinum in Zürich then continued his education in Germany, where he focused on Old Testament studies and Oriental languages. In 1823 he returned to Zürich, where he taught classes on Hebrew language and theology at the Carolinum. In 1833 he became an associate professor of theology at the newly established University of Zürich.

#1879

Aegidius Hunnius

Aegidius Hunnius

1550 - 1603 (53 years)

Aegidius Hunnius the Elder was a Lutheran theologian of the Lutheran scholastic tradition and father of Nicolaus Hunnius. Life Hunnius went rapidly through the preparatory schools of Württemberg, and studied from 1565 to 1574 at Tübingen. In 1576 Jacob Heerbrand recommended him as professor to the University of Marburg, where Hunnius exerted himself to do away with all compromises and restore Lutheran orthodoxy. He gained many adherents, and the consequence was a split in the State Church of Hesse which finally led to the separation of Upper and Lower Hesse. The cardinal point of all controversies was the doctrine of ubiquity which Hunnius maintained in his writing De persona Christi.

#1880

Oscar von Gebhardt

1844 - 1906 (62 years)

Oscar Leopold von Gebhardt was a German Lutheran theologian, born in the Baltic German settlement of Wesenberg in the Russian Empire . He studied theology at Dorpat and at several other German universities, and afterwards worked in university libraries at Strasbourg, Leipzig, Halle and Göttingen. In 1891 he became director of the publication department at the Royal Library at Berlin, and in 1893 became chief librarian and professor of paleography at the University of Leipzig.

#1881

Peder Madsen

1843 - 1911 (68 years)

Peder Madsen was a Danish theologian and Bishop of the Diocese of Zealand from 1909 until his death in 1911. Prior to being ordained as a bishop, he had been a professor and the rector of the University of Copenhagen.

#1882

François de Pâris

François de Pâris

1690 - 1727 (37 years)

François de Pâris was a French Catholic deacon and theologian, a supporter of Jansenism. He became deacon of the Oratory of St. Magloire and was noted for his critique of the papal bull Unigenitus, which condemned Pasquier Quesnel's annotated translation of the Bible. He gave his earnings to the poor, and in his retirement he lived in a state of extreme poverty. After his death, his place of burial gained a reputation for supernatural events and the basis of the Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard where he is buried. In 1731 there was a movement by the Jansenists to canonize François de Pâris as...

#1883

Pedro Abarca

1619 - 1697 (78 years)

Pedro Abarca was a Jesuit theologian. Life Born in Aragon, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1641, and passed almost all his religious life as professor of scholastic, moral, and controversial theology, chiefly in the University of Salamanca. He died at Palencia.

#1884

James Hadow

1667 - 1747 (80 years)

James Hadow was a Scottish minister who served as Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews from 1707 till 1747. Life He was born in Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland on 13 August 1667. He died on 4 May 1747 at St Andrews, Fife, Scotland.

#1885

Vasile Gheorghiu

1872 - 1959 (87 years)

Vasile Gheorghiu was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian theologian. Born in Câmpulung Moldovenesc, then part of Austrian-ruled Bukovina, he attended the Romanian Orthodox high school in Suceava from 1882 to 1890, followed by the theology faculty of Czernowitz University from 1890 to 1984, receiving a doctorate there in 1897. From 1897 to 1899, he attended specialized courses at the Roman Catholic and Protestant theology faculties in Vienna, Bonn, Breslau, and Leipzig. In 1901, he was hired as assistant professor at Czernowitz' Biblical studies and New Testament exegesis department within the theology faculty.

#1886

Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga

Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga

1874 - 1957 (83 years)

Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga was a Dutch theologian. From 1936 to 1944 he was professor in New Testament exegesis at the University of Amsterdam. He belonged to the Dutch school of Radical Criticism. Bergh van Eysinga was an advocate of the Christ myth theory.

#1887

Wilfrid

634 - 709 (75 years)

Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon. In 664 Wilfrid acted as spokesman for the Roman position at the Synod of Whitby, and became famous for his speech advocating that the Roman method for calculating the date of Easter should be adopted. His success prompted the king's son, Alhfrith, to appoint him Bishop of Northumbria. Wilfrid chose to be consecrated in G...

#1888

Andreas Hyperius

Andreas Hyperius

1511 - 1564 (53 years)

Andreas Gerhard Hyperius , real name Andreas Gheeraerdts, was a Protestant theologian and Protestant reformer. He was Flemish, born at Ypres, which is signified by the name 'Hyperius'. Life He had a humanist education, and studied at Tournai and Paris. He was resident in England from 1536 to 1540, and in 1542 was appointed professor of theology at Marburg.

#1889

John Macleod Campbell Crum

1872 - 1958 (86 years)

The Rev. Canon John Macleod Campbell Crum was an Anglican priest, author and hymnwriter. Family and education Crum was born at Mere Old Hall near Knutsford, Cheshire, to William Graham Crum, a calico printer, and Jean Campbell, who were both of Scottish origin. The family later lived at Broxton Old Hall, also in Cheshire. His grandfathers were the chemist Walter Crum and the theologian John McLeod Campbell.

#1890

Constantine von Schäzler

1827 - 1880 (53 years)

Constantine von Schäzler was a German Jesuit theologian. Life By birth and training a Protestant, he was a pupil at the Protestant gymnasium St. Anna of Ratisbon; took the philosophical course at the University of Erlangen in 1844–45; then studied law at Munich, 1845–47, and at Heidelberg, 1847–48. After this he decided to enter military life and became a Bavarian officer; in 1850, however, he left the army, received the degree of Doctor of Laws at Erlangen, and took up the practice of law.

#1891

Festus Hommius

1576 - 1642 (66 years)

Festus Hommius was a Dutch Calvinist theologian. Life He was born in Jelsum, into a noted Frisian family. He studied from 1593 at the University of Franeker under Sibrandus Lubbertus, travelled in 1595 to the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle and completed his studies from 1596 at the University of Leiden. Around 1597 Hommius became preacher of Warmond, near Leiden.

#1892

Ludolph of Saxony

Ludolph of Saxony

1300 - 1377 (77 years)

Ludolph of Saxony , also known as Ludolphus de Saxonia and Ludolph the Carthusian, was a German Roman Catholic theologian of the fourteenth century. His principal work, first printed in the 1470s, was the Vita Christi . It had significant influence on the development of techniques for Christian meditation by introducing the concept of immersing and projecting oneself into a Biblical scene about the life of Jesus which became popular among the Devotio Moderna community, and later influenced Ignatius of Loyola.

#1893

Nicolas Cop

1501 - 1540 (39 years)

Nicolas Cop , rector of the University of Paris in late 1533, from 10 October 1533, was a Swiss Protestant Reformer and friend of John Calvin. Nicolas Cop and his brother Michel Cop, sons of the king's physician, had become Calvin's friends during their shared time at the Collège de Montaigu. They were sons of Guillaume Cop, a native of Basel who became physician to the king of France, Francis I.

#1894

Arsenie Boca

1910 - 1989 (79 years)

Arsenie Boca was a Romanian priest, theologian, mystic, and artist. He was persecuted by the Romanian Communist Party. Born in Vața de Sus, Hunedoara County, he died at Sinaia Monastery and was buried at in Silvașu de Sus village. In a poll of the Romanian public conducted by Romanian Television in 2006, Boca was voted 79th among 100 Greatest Romanians.

#1895

Henry Goodwin Smith

1860 - 1940 (80 years)

Henry Goodwin Smith was a United States theologian, the son of Henry Boynton Smith. He was pastor of the Freehold Presbyterian Church in 1886-1896, and from 1897 to 1903 was professor of systematic theology in Lane Theological Seminary.

#1896

Guillaume-André-Réné Baston

1741 - 1825 (84 years)

Guillaume-André-René Baston was a French theologian. Life He studied theology at St. Sulpice in Paris and finished his studies at Angers. He was then appointed professor of theology at Rouen. During the French Revolution he wrote against the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Having refused to take the oath, he was obliged to go into exile , first to London, then to Holland, and finally to Coesfeld in Westphalia. In 1803 he returned to Rouen, where he was appointed vicar-general and dean of the chapter by Archbishop Cambacérès. As a Gallican, he won the favor of Napoleon, who appointed him Bishop of Séez , and the chapter of the cathedral accepted him as capitular vicar.

#1897

Jan Długosz

1415 - 1480 (65 years)

Jan Długosz , also known in Latin as Johannes Longinus, was a Polish priest, chronicler, diplomat, soldier, and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków. He is considered Poland's first historian.

#1898

Edward Everett Nourse

1863 - 1929 (66 years)

Edward Everett Nourse, D.D. was an American Congregational theologian. Nourse was born at Bayfield, Wisconsin. He studied at the College and the Academy at Lake Forest, Illinois, at Macalester College in Minnesota, Hartford Theological Seminary , and in Europe at the University of Jena

#1899

Johann Michael Reu

1869 - 1943 (74 years)

Johann Michael Reu was a German - American Lutheran theologian, author and educator. Johann Michael Reu was born at Diebach, in Bavaria, Germany. He was the youngest of ten children. His father died when Reu was only two years old. Reu studied from 1887 to 1889 at the nearby Neuendettelsau Mission Institute which had been founded by Wilhelm Loehe in 1841.

#1900

Johannes Alberti

Johannes Alberti

1698 - 1762 (64 years)

Johannes Alberti was a Dutch theologian. Early life Alberti was the son of a flour miller. He did not regularly attend school due to the distance between his parents' house and the local school. However, the miller's apprentice, Jan Mulder, taught the boy to read. He made good progress, and soon the teacher took his student with him to the church. To his amazement, he noticed that the boy kept his attention on the pulpit. When Alberti returned home, his mother asked him if he remembered anything that had been said. He stood upon a wooden crate in the living room, recited the text of the sermon, and declaimed parts of it with such simplicity that his mother had tears in her eyes.

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