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.
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#2151
Norman Porteous
1898 - 2003 (105 years)
Norman Walker Porteous was a noted theologian and writer on Old Testament issues, and the last surviving military officer of the First World War. Education Porteous entered the University of Edinburgh as first bursar in 1916, but his studies were interrupted by World War I service in France, where he served as a subaltern in the 13th Battalion, The Royal Scots.
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Alexander Schmemann
1921 - 1983 (62 years)
Alexander Dmitrievich Schmemann was an influential Orthodox priest, theologian, and author who spent most of his career in the United States. Born in Estonia to émigrés from the Russian Revolution, he grew up primarily in France, where there was a large émigré community in Paris. After being educated there in both Russian and French schools and universities, from 1946 to 1951 he taught in Paris. That year he immigrated with his family to New York City to teach at Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. In 1962 he was selected as dean of the Seminary, serving in this position until his death.
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Garfield Bromley Oxnam
1891 - 1963 (72 years)
Garfield Bromley Oxnam was a social reformer and American Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1936. Early life Garfield Bromley Oxnam was born in Los Angeles on August 14, 1891. His father was a mining engineer and instilled in his son a conservative theology. Oxnam embraced these beliefs in his youth, even describing socialism as "the biggest idiocy ever presented to the public." However, in his early 20s Oxnam gravitated towards Dana W. Bartlett and the movements of the Social Gospel.
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Edmund Tyrrell Green
1864 - 1937 (73 years)
Edmund Tyrrell Green was an English Anglican academic, curate and author. He graduated from St John's College, Oxford, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886. From 1887 until 1890 he was a curate of St Barnabas, Oxford, and was then appointed lecturer in Hebrew and theology at St David's College, Lampeter, Wales. Six years later, he became professor of the same subjects in addition to being a lecturer in parochial duties since 1896. He was lecturer in architecture in 1902, and wrote several books on the details of church architecture, often using his own drawings. He was also one of the found...
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Paul Ramsey
1913 - 1988 (75 years)
Robert Paul Ramsey was an American Christian ethicist of the 20th century. He was a Methodist and his primary focus in ethics was medical ethics. The major portion of his academic career was spent as a tenured professor at Princeton University until the end of his life in 1988. His most notable contributions to ethics were in the fields of Christian ethics, bioethics, just war theory and common law.
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Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin
1847 - 1926 (79 years)
Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich Graf von Baudissin was a German Protestant theologian who was a native of Sophienhof, near Kiel. Education Baudissin studied theology and Oriental studies at Berlin, Erlangen, Leipzig and Kiel, earning his doctorate in 1870 at Leipzig.
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G. Johannes Botterweck
1917 - 1981 (64 years)
Gerhard Johannes Botterweck was a German theologian, Old Testament scholar and dean of the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn. He is best known for his multi volume work the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament.
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Nathaniel Micklem
1888 - 1976 (88 years)
Nathaniel Micklem was a British theologian and political activist who also served as the principal of Mansfield College. Early life and education Micklem was born in Brondesbury. His father, also Nathaniel Micklem, was a barrister who later became a Liberal Party Member of Parliament. He grew up in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire, and studied at Rugby School, New College, Oxford and Mansfield College, serving as President of the Oxford Union.
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Howard Masterman
1867 - 1933 (66 years)
John Howard Bertram Masterman was the first Anglican Bishop of Plymouth from 1923 to 1933. In authorship he is known as J. H. B. Masterman. His works ranged from religion to political and in the First World War he was asked to write two of the tracts distributed to troops to assure them that they were doing God's will.
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Ludwig Wahrmund
1860 - 1932 (72 years)
Ludwig Wahrmund was an Austrian professor of Canon Law at the University of Innsbruck. Ludwig was the son of Adolf Wahrmund, a noted anti-semite. However, Ludwig rose to prominence from a lecture he gave on 18 January 1908 in Innsbruck Town Hall entitled Catholic Weltanschauung and Free Science. The lecture was repeated in Salzburg and published as a pamphlet. Ludwig's criticism of the Catholic Church and their attempt to control education gave rise to the "Wahrmund Affair", which led to his removal from his professorial chair in Innsbruck.
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Philip Edgcumbe Hughes
1915 - 1990 (75 years)
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes was an Anglican clergyman and New Testament scholar whose life spanned four continents: Australia, where he was born; South Africa, where he spent his formative years; England, where he was ordained; and the United States, where he died in 1990, aged 75.
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Friedrich Brunstäd
1883 - 1944 (61 years)
Friedrich Brunstäd was a German Lutheran systematic theologian and philosopher. He attempted a renewal of German idealism, from the point of view of Lutheranism. From 1901 he studied philosophy, theology, political science and history at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1909 with the thesis Untersuchungen zu Hegels Geschichtstheorie . In 1911 he obtained his habilitation for philosophy at the University of Erlangen, where in 1918 he became an associate professor. In 1925 he was appointed as professor of systematic theology at the University of Rostock .
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Günther Dehn
1882 - 1970 (88 years)
Günther Dehn was a German pastor and theologian. He was an illegal instructor in the Confessing Church, and, after 1945, he was a professor of practical theology. Dehn was one of the first victims of Nazi campaigns against critical intellectuals in the Weimar Republic. He was a Christian socialist in the tradition of Christoph Blumhardt, Hermann Kutter, and Leonhard Ragaz.
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Thomas Aquinas
1225 - 1274 (49 years)
Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, an influential philosopher and theologian, and a jurist in the tradition of scholasticism from the county of Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily.
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Martin Luther
1483 - 1546 (63 years)
Martin Luther was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar. He was the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs form the basis of Lutheranism.
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Augustine of Hippo
354 - 430 (76 years)
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
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Origen
185 - 254 (69 years)
Origen of Alexandria , also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism. He has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".
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Karl Barth
1886 - 1968 (82 years)
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary The Epistle to the Romans, his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics . Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.
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John Calvin
1509 - 1564 (55 years)
John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Calvinist doctrines were influenced by and elaborated upon the Augustinian and other Christian traditions. Various Congregational, Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throug...
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Paul the Apostle
5 - 67 (62 years)
Paul , commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. Generally regarded as one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age, he founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD.
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Irenaeus
130 - 202 (72 years)
Irenaeus was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by combating heterodox or Gnostic interpretations of Scripture as heresy and defining proto-orthodoxy. Originating from Smyrna, he had seen and heard the preaching of Polycarp, who in turn was said to have heard John the Evangelist, and thus was the last-known living connection with the Apostles.
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Tertullian
155 - 220 (65 years)
Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "the founder of Western theology".
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1770 - 1831 (61 years)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and one of the most influential figures of German idealism and 19th-century philosophy. His influence extends across the entire range of contemporary philosophical topics, from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy.
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Eusebius
265 - 339 (74 years)
Eusebius of Caesarea , also known as Eusebius Pamphilus , was a Greek or Palestinian historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians during late antiquity. He wrote Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel and On Discrepancies between the Gospels, studies of the biblical text. As "Father of Church History" , he produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle and On the Martyrs.
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Jerome
345 - 420 (75 years)
Jerome , also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome was born at Stridon. The exact location of Stridon is unknown. It is possible Stridon was located either in modern Croatia or Slovenia. Possible locations are the vicinity of Ljubljana, Starod , Sdrin, Štrigova, Zrenj, Zrin or, according to Frane Bulić in his work Stridon in Grahovsko polje, near the town of Grahovo, in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Rudolf Bultmann
1884 - 1976 (92 years)
Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic of liberal theology, Bultmann instead argued for an existentialist interpretation of the New Testament. His hermeneutical approach to the New Testament led him to be a proponent of dialectical theology.
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Justin Martyr
100 - 165 (65 years)
Justin Martyr , also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian apologist and philosopher. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue did survive. The First Apology, his most well-known text, passionately defends the morality of the Christian life, and provides various ethical and philosophical arguments to convince the Roman emperor, Antoninus, to abandon the persecution of the Church. Further, he also indicates, as St. Augustine would later, regarding the "true religion" that predated Christianity, that the "seeds of Christianity" actually predated Christ's incarnation.
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Friedrich Schleiermacher
1768 - 1834 (66 years)
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, ...
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Clement of Alexandria
150 - 215 (65 years)
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A convert to Christianity, he was an educated man who was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular, by Plato and the Stoics. His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism as well.
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Henri de Lubac
1896 - 1991 (95 years)
Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac , better known as Henri de Lubac, was a French Jesuit priest and cardinal who is considered one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in shaping the Second Vatican Council.
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John Chrysostom
349 - 407 (58 years)
John Chrysostom was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, his Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities. The epithet means "golden-mouthed" in Greek and denotes his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church.
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Karl Rahner
1904 - 1984 (80 years)
Karl Rahner was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Yves Congar, is considered to be one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century. He was the brother of Hugo Rahner, also a Jesuit scholar.
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Adi Shankara
788 - 820 (32 years)
Adi Shankara, also called Adi Shankaracharya , was an 8th-century Indian Vedic scholar and teacher . His works present a harmonizing reading of the sastras, with liberating knowledge of the self at its core, synthesizing the Advaita Vedanta teachings of his time.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906 - 1945 (39 years)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for one-and-a-half years.
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John Henry Newman
1801 - 1890 (89 years)
John Henry Newman was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s, and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.
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Maximus the Confessor
580 - 662 (82 years)
Maximus the Confessor , also spelled Maximos, otherwise known as Maximus the Theologian and Maximus of Constantinople , was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. In his early life, Maximus was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. He gave up this life in the political sphere to enter the monastic life. Maximus had studied diverse schools of philosophy, and certainly what was common for his time, the Platonic dialogues, the works of Aristotle, and numerous later Platonic commentators on Aristotle and Plato, like Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. When o...
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Ignatius of Loyola
1491 - 1556 (65 years)
Ignatius of Loyola , venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus , and became its first Superior General, in Paris in 1541.
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Anselm of Canterbury
1033 - 1109 (76 years)
Anselm of Canterbury OSB , also called after his birthplace and after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. After his death, he was canonized as a saint; his feast day is 21 April. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by a bull of Pope Clement XI in 1720.
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Gregory of Nazianzus
329 - 389 (60 years)
Gregory of Nazianzus , also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen, was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople and theologian. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained orator and philosopher, he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.
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Emanuel Swedenborg
1688 - 1772 (84 years)
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell . Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, notably on Easter Weekend, on 6 April 1744. His experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity. According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the...
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Arius
250 - 336 (86 years)
Arius was a Cyrenaic presbyter, ascetic, and priest. Traditionally, it was claimed that Arius was the founder of the doctrine of Arianism but, more recently, Rowan Williams stated that "Arius’ role in ‘Arianism’ was not that of the founder of a sect. It was not his individual teaching that dominated the mid-century eastern Church."
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Duns Scotus
1265 - 1308 (43 years)
John Duns Scotus was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher and theologian. He is one of the four most important Christian philosopher-theologians of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages, together with Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham.
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Reinhold Niebuhr
1892 - 1971 (79 years)
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. The latter is ranked number 18 of the top 100 non-fiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.
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Hippolytus of Rome
150 - 235 (85 years)
Hippolytus of Rome was one of the most important second-third century Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communities include Rome, Palestine, Egypt, Anatolia and other regions of the Middle East. The best historians of literature in the ancient church, including Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome, openly confess they cannot name where Hippolytus the biblical commentator and theologian served in leadership. They had read his works but did not possess evidence of his community. Photios I of Constantinople describes him ...
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Hans Urs von Balthasar
1905 - 1988 (83 years)
Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and Catholic priest who is considered an important Catholic theologian of the 20th century. Pope John Paul II announced his choice of Balthasar to become a cardinal, but he died shortly before the consistory. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in his funeral oration for Balthasar that "he is right in what he teaches of the faith" and that he "points the way to the sources of living water".
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Emil Brunner
1889 - 1966 (77 years)
Heinrich Emil Brunner was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Along with Karl Barth, he is commonly associated with neo-orthodoxy or the dialectical theology movement. Biography Brunner was born on 23 December 1889 in Winterthur, in the Swiss canton of Zürich.
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Francis of Assisi
1182 - 1226 (44 years)
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone , known as Francis of Assisi , was an Italian mystic and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. He was inspired to lead a life of poverty as an itinerant preacher. One of the most venerated figures in Christianity, Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228. He is commonly portrayed wearing a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist, featuring three knots that symbolize the three Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
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Basil of Caesarea
329 - 379 (50 years)
Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great , was a bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential theologian who supported the Nicene Creed and opposed the heresies of the early Christian church, fighting against both Arianism and the followers of Apollinaris of Laodicea. His ability to balance his theological convictions with his political connections made Basil a powerful advocate for the Nicene position.
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John of Damascus
675 - 749 (74 years)
John of Damascus or John Damascene was an Arab Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. Born and raised in Damascus or 676; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem on 4 December 749.
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Ambrose
339 - 397 (58 years)
Ambrose of Milan , venerated as Saint Ambrose, was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promoting Roman Christianity against Arianism and paganism. He left a substantial collection of writings, of which the best known include the ethical commentary De officiis ministrorum , and the exegetical . His preachings, his actions and his literary works, in addition to his innovative musical hymnography, made him one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century.
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