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 Theology,
#4001
Carl Georg Rogberg
1789 - 1834 (45 years)
Carl Georg Rogberg was a Swedish priest and university teacher. Rogberg matriculated at Uppsala University in 1807 and studied at the faculty of theology where he graduated in 1818. He started to take seminaries to become a vicar at Heliga Trefaldighets congregation in Uppsala in 1823. In 1828 he became a member of the Bible commission, which was working on a new translation of the Bible into Swedish and in 1831 he became professor of pastoral theology in Uppsala.
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Jonathan Parsons
1705 - 1776 (71 years)
Jonathan Parsons was a Christian New England clergyman during the late colonial period and a supporter of the American Revolution. Born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, he was the youngest son of Ebenezer Parsons and Margaret Marshfield of Springfield. Though intended for an artisan career, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, then a tutor at Yale, persuaded young Parsons to prepare for college.
Go to Profile#4003
Absalon
1128 - 1201 (73 years)
Absalon was a Danish statesman and prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the bishop of Roskilde from 1158 to 1192 and archbishop of Lund from 1178 until his death. He was the foremost politician and church father of Denmark in the second half of the 12th century, and was the closest advisor of King Valdemar I of Denmark. He was a key figure in the Danish policies of territorial expansion in the Baltic Sea, Europeanization in close relationship with the Holy See, and reform in the relation between the Church and the public. He combined the ideals of Gregorian Reform with loyal support o...
Go to Profile#4004
Harrison Gray Otis Dwight
1803 - 1862 (59 years)
Harrison Gray Otis Dwight was an American Congregational missionary. Biography Harrison Gray Otis Dwight was born on November 22, 1803, in Conway, Massachusetts. His father was Seth Dwight and mother was Hannah Strong .
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Vincent Taylor
1887 - 1968 (81 years)
Vincent Taylor was a Methodist biblical scholar and theologian. He was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy in 1954, specializing in theology. During his career, he was both Principal of Wesley College, Headingley, Leeds and, from 1930–58, Ferens Professor of New Testament Language and Literature there. He was also Examiner in Biblical Theology, London University. He is described as "one of the outstanding New Testament scholars of his day and theologian of great renown and influence" with an "immense" literary output. According to the British Academy, his principal publications ...
Go to Profile#4006
Martin Franzmann
1907 - 1976 (69 years)
Martin H. Franzmann was an American Lutheran clergyman and theologian. He was also a college professor and poet who wrote numerous books and hymns. Early life and education Martin Hans Franzmann was born in Lake City, Minnesota. He was the son of Rev. William Franzmann and Else Franzmann . His father was an immigrant from Germany and was a Lutheran minister. Franzmann graduated from Northwestern College before entering Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. He had also studied at the University of Chicago, but did not earn a degree. He later studied in Greece as a Daniel L. Shorey Traveling Fellow.
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Emani Sambayya
1905 - 1972 (67 years)
Canon Emani Sambayya was an Anglican Priest, who was born in Bodipalem in Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. He has been described as an "eloquent speaker and a gifted writer." Early life and education Emani Sambayya was born in Bodipalem in Andhra Pradesh on 25 July 1905.
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Bartholomäus Ringwaldt
Bartholomäus Ringwaldt was a German didactic poet and Lutheran pastor. He is most recognized as a hymnwriter. Biography Bartholomäus Ringwaldt was born in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Germany. From 1543, he studied theology. After graduating, he first started his career as a teacher. He was ordained into the Lutheran Ministry during 1557 and served as pastor of two parishes. In 1566, he became the pastor of Langenfeld, Neumark. Starting during the 1570s, he wrote songs and poems which focused on his religious and theological beliefs. Ringwaldt was a prolific hymnist, and may have composed tunes as...
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Antonín Chráska
1868 - 1953 (85 years)
Antonín Chráska was a Czech Protestant missionary, translator and theologian. Chráska translated the Protestant Bible into Slovene for the first time since the 1584 Dalmatian Bible. Born into a family of weavers, Chráska decided to study theology at the age of 21. In 1897 he married and moved with his wife to Ljubljana, where he learned Slovene and began missionary work.
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Alfred Tooming
1907 - 1977 (70 years)
Alfred Tooming was an Estonian prelate who served as the Archbishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church between 1967 and 1977. He was born on Idu farm in Ülejõe, Anija Parish, Governorate of Estonia in the Russian Empire, the son of Tõnu Tooming and Miina Roop. He studied at Kehra Municipal School between 1916 and 1919 and in 1927 graduated from the Jakob Westholm Gymnasium. From 1927 to 1932 he studied at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Tartu. He was ordained priest in St. Mary's Cathedral, Tallinn on 2 September 1934.
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Henry James Sr.
1811 - 1882 (71 years)
Henry James Sr. was an American theologian and the father of the philosopher William James, the novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. Following a dramatic moment of spiritual enlightenment, he became deeply absorbed in Swedenborgianism, repudiating materialism and following the utopian path to grace. In this way, he was generally out of sympathy with contemporary American leaders of philosophical thought. His influence was felt more in frequent lively debates within his own circle of friends than in public life. He said “I love the fireside rather than the forum."
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Randolph Sinks Foster
1820 - 1903 (83 years)
Randolph Sinks Foster was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1872. Biography Born on February 22, 1820, at Williamsburg, Ohio, U.S., the son of Israel Foster and Mary "Polly" Kain, he attended Augusta College in Kentucky, but left to become a Preacher in the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church when he was only seventeen. He was ordained to the Traveling Ministry by Bishops Waugh and Hedding. He went on to become the pastor of the Mulberry Street M.E. Church in New York City, where he met Daniel Drew, the financier who provided the original funding...
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Palladius of Ratiaria
301 - 400 (99 years)
Palladius of Ratiaria was a late 4th century Arian Christian theologian, based in the Roman province of Dacia in modern Romania. He was deposed from his office, together with Secundianus of Singidunum, at the Council of Aquileia, held in 381 AD.
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Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi
1903 - 1964 (61 years)
Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi , OCSO was an Igbo Nigerian priest of the Catholic Church who worked in the Archdiocese of Onitsha and later became a Trappist monk at Mount Saint Bernard Monastery in England.
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Orlando Costas
1941 - 1987 (46 years)
Orlando Enrique Costas was a Hispanic Evangelical theologian and missiologist. Biography Costas was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico to Methodist parents, Ventura Enrique Costas and Rosaline Rivera. He moved with his father to the United States, living first in the Bronx and then Bridgeport, CT. He finished his high school years at Bob Jones Academy and studied at the Missionary College of Nyack. Costas returned to Puerto Rico, where he was ordained in the American Baptist Churches of Puerto Rico, pastored a local church, and studied at the Interamerican University. He returned to the United States...
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David Friedrich Weinland
1829 - 1915 (86 years)
David Friedrich Weinland was a German zoologist and novelist. The son of a pastor, Weinland attended the Protestant Seminary in Maulbronn from 1843 to 1847. He studied theology at the University of Tübingen 1847–51, followed by two semester of studying natural sciences. He earned his PhD in 1852. then worked as an assistant at the Zoological Museum in Berlin. From 1855 he conducted scientific investigations in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean and worked for three years in Louis Agassiz's microscopical laboratory at Harvard University.
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Bernt Støylen
1858 - 1937 (79 years)
Bernt Andreas Støylen was a Norwegian theologian, psalmist, and Bishop in the Church of Norway. Personal life Støylen was born in Sande in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway on 17 February 1858. He was the son of farmer and fisherman Andreas Olsen Støylen and Margrete Helgesdatter Bringsvor. He was married in Bergen in 1890 to Kamilla Karoline Heiberg. His son was Kaare Støylen, a future bishop, and his brother-in-law was Georg Sverdrup, the Norwegian-American theologian. He died in Bærum, Norway in 1937.
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Robert Baron
1596 - 1639 (43 years)
Robert Baron was a Scottish theologian and one of the so-called Aberdeen doctors. He is commemorated in the Calendar of saints of the Scottish Episcopal Church on 28 March. Life Born in 1596 at Kinnaird, Gowrie, he was the younger son of John Baron of Kinnaird. After graduating from the University of St Andrews in 1613, he became a teacher of Philosophy there until, in 1619, he entered the ministry and took charge of parish of Keith. In the latter charge his predecessor had been the famous Patrick Forbes.
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Margaret Dunlop Gibson
1843 - 1920 (77 years)
#4020
Johannes Gezelius the elder
1615 - 1690 (75 years)
Johannes Gezelius the elder , known in Swedish as Johannes Gezelius den äldre and Johannes Gezelius vanhempi in Finnish, was the Bishop of Turku and the Vice-Chancellor of The Royal Academy of Turku .
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Robert Sandeman
1718 - 1771 (53 years)
Robert Sandeman was a Scottish nonconformist theologian. He was closely associated with the Glasite church which he helped to promote. His importance was such that Glasite churches outside Scotland were known as Sandemanian.
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Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza
1578 - 1651 (73 years)
Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza , also called Puente Hurtado de Mendoza, was a Basque scholastic philosopher and theologian. Philosophical work He was a teacher of theology and philosophy in Valladolid and he occupied a chair at the University of Salamanca.
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Jean-Baptiste Terrien
1832 - 1903 (71 years)
Jean-Baptiste Terrien was a French Jesuit dogmatic theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus at Angers, 7 December 1854; he then taught philosophy for two years and dogmatic theology for twenty-two at the seminaries of Laval , 1864–80, and Saint Helier , 1880–88. After being spiritual father at Laval, he was appointed professor of dogmatic theology and taught three years, 1891–94, at the Catholic Institute of Paris, remaining afterwards in this city as spiritual father and writer.
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Sebastian Hofmeister
1476 - 1533 (57 years)
Sebastian Hofmeister , known in writing as Oeconomus or Oikonomos, was a Swiss monk and religious Reformer who was prominent in early debates of the Reformation. Hofmeister joined the Franciscan order in Schaffhausen before studying for several years in Paris. There he studied Hebrew and the classical languages and received a doctorate in theology in 1519. By 1520, he was sent to Zürich as a lecturer and later in the same year to Constance. It was in Zurich where he first met the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli, who influenced him a great deal. Hofmeister would begin preaching the Reformation at Lucerne, resulting in his expulsion from that town.
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Johann Jakob Wick
1522 - 1588 (66 years)
Johann Jakob Wick was a Protestant clergyman from Zürich. Wick lived in the Zürich of Heinrich Bullinger, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli. He studied theology in Tübingen, and was pastor of Witikon, at the city hospital, and the Predigerkirche. Afterwards he was canon and second archdeacon at the Grossmünster. Wick is the collector of the Wickiana.
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Ernst Tillich
1910 - 1985 (75 years)
Ernst Tillich was a German theologian. He survived the twelve Nazi years, but nevertheless spent much of the period in state detention, including more than three years in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. Subsequently, between 1951 and 1958, Tillich led the Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit , a US funded militant campaigning anti-communist organisation, based in West Berlin, which supported resistance to the one-party dictatorship that had established itself as the German Democratic Republic in October 1949.
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Francis Line
1595 - 1675 (80 years)
Francis Line, SJ , also known as Linus of Liège, was a Jesuit priest and scientist. He is known for inventing a magnetic clock. He is noted as a contemporary critic of the theories and work of Isaac Newton. He also challenged Robert Boyle and his law of gases.
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David Erdmann
1821 - 1905 (84 years)
David Erdmann was a German evangelical theologian and church historian. Life Christian Friedrich David Erdmann was born at Güstebiese , a village on the eastern bank of the Oder river a short distance inland and upstream from Stettin. He studied Theology in Berlin, and in 1845 became a member of the Berlin Wingolf . He received a "Privatdozent" in 1853, and in 1856 became a full professor for Theology and Church History at the University of Königsberg, also serving as a pastor.
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Francis Sylvius
1581 - 1649 (68 years)
Francis Sylvius was a Flemish Roman Catholic theologian. Life After completing his course of humanities at Mons, he studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven and theology at University of Douai, in a seminary founded by the bishop of Cambrai in connection with the faculty of theology. While studying theology he taught philosophy at the royal college. On 9 November 1610, he was made doctor of theology with the highest honours.
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Richard of Middleton
1249 - 1302 (53 years)
Richard of Middleton was a member of the Franciscan Order, a theologian, and scholastic philosopher. Life Richard's origins are unclear: he was either Norman French or English . As a Bachelor of the Sentences of Peter Lombard at the University of Paris in 1283, he played a part in the Franciscan commission examining Peter Olivi. He was regent master of the Franciscan studium in Paris from 1284 to 1287, and, on 20 September 1295 in Metz, he was elected Franciscan minister provincial of France. He was also subsequently tutor to Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles II of Anjou. He died sometime b...
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Karl August Traugott Vogt
1808 - 1869 (61 years)
Karl August Traugott Vogt, name sometimes given as Carl Vogt was a German Protestant theologian. He was the father of philologist Friedrich Vogt . Vogt was born in Wittenberg. In 1830 he obtained his habilitation at the University of Berlin, where he later became an associate professor of church history and practical theology. During his time spent in Berlin, he gave sermons at the Trinity Church. In 1837 he relocated as a full professor to the University of Greifswald, where on three occasions he served as university rector . In Greifswald, he also served as an ecclesiastical superintendent and as a member of the Consistory.
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Georges Dandoy
1882 - 1962 (80 years)
Georges Dandoy was a Belgian Jesuit priest, missionary in India, theologian and Indologist. He is included in the so-called ‘Calcutta School of Indology’ . Education After a year of philosophical studies at Namur , he was sent to Stonyhurst, England to complete his philosophy , and to begin studying Sanskrit at Oxford University . Sent to Kolkata, he began teaching at St Xavier’s College before beginning his theological studies at St Mary’s, Kurseong, near Darjeeling . He was ordained priest in November 1914.
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Norbert of Xanten
1080 - 1134 (54 years)
Norbert of Xanten, O. Praem , also known as Norbert Gennep, was a bishop of the Catholic Church, founder of the Premonstratensian order of canons regular, and is venerated as a saint. Norbert was canonized by Pope Gregory XIII in the year 1582, and his statue appears above the Piazza colonnade of St. Peter's Square in Rome.
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John Caird
1820 - 1898 (78 years)
John Caird DD LLD was a Scottish theologian. He entered the Church of Scotland, of which he became one of the most eloquent preachers. He served as the Principal of the University of Glasgow from 1873 until 1898.
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Daniel Tilenus
1563 - 1633 (70 years)
Daniel Tilenus was a German-French Protestant theologian. Initially a Calvinist, he became a prominent and influential Arminian teaching at the Academy of Sedan. He was an open critic of the Synod of Dort of 1618-9.
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Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy
1613 - 1684 (71 years)
Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy , a priest of Port-Royal, was a theologian and French humanist. He is best known for his translation of the Bible, the most widespread French Bible in the 18th century, also known as the Bible de Port-Royal.
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Johann Nepomuk Oischinger
1817 - 1876 (59 years)
Johann Nepomuk Paul Oischinger was a German Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher who was a native of Witzmannsberg, Bavaria. Oischinger studied theology and philosophy at the University of Munich, where he had as instructors Franz Xaver von Baader , Joseph Görres , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Ignaz von Döllinger , Heinrich Klee , Johann Adam Möhler and Franz Xaver Reithmayr . In 1841 he received his ordination in Regensburg, and shortly afterwards returned to Munich, where he worked as a private scholar and journalist for the remainder of his career.
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Caspar Erich Schieler
1851 - 1934 (83 years)
Caspar Erasmus Schieler was a German theologian, church historian and priest in the late 19th century and early 20th century. According to documents provided by Mainz Cathedral and the Diocesan Seminary, Schieler studied philosophy and theology at the Episcopal Seminary in Mainz , receiving the Doctor of Divinity degree. Schieler first served as a priest at the age of twenty-five at Mainz, Cathedral ordained under Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler in the year 1876. Due to the Kulturkampf, Schieler was interrogated by the German government and forced to pastor his parish in secret, to avoid further attention.
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Lauri Ingman
1868 - 1934 (66 years)
Lars Johannes Ingman was a Finnish theologian, bishop and politician. In 1906 he began to serve as the editor of Vartija, a Christian magazine. From 1916 to 1930 he was the professor of practical theology in the University of Helsinki. He was also a member of the conservative National Coalition Party, where he acted as the speaker of the parliament and a minister in several cabinets, and served as the Prime Minister of Finland twice, in 1918–1919 and 1924–1925. In 1930 he was elected Archbishop of Turku, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
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Liselotte Richter
1906 - 1968 (62 years)
Liselotte Richter was a German philosopher and theologian. She was the first female professor of philosophy in Germany. Early life Luise Charlotte Richter was born in 1906 and grew up with her twin brother Fritz in a middle-class family, first in Berlin-Tegel and then in Charlottenburg.
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Francisco Macedo
1596 - 1681 (85 years)
Francisco Macedo , known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian. Life He entered the Jesuit Order in 1610, which however he left in 1638 in order to join the Discalced Augustinians. These also he left in 1648, for the Franciscans. In Portugal he sided with the House of Braganza.
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Abraham Hinckelmann
1652 - 1695 (43 years)
Abraham Hinckelmann , a German Protestant theologian, was an Islamologist who was one of the first to print a complete Qur'an in Hamburg. Later, a cleric named Ludovico Marracci from the "Society of the Monks of the Divine Path" published a better version.
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E. J. P. Jorissen
1829 - 1912 (83 years)
Eduard Johan Pieter Jorissen was a Dutch lawyer and politician. He graduated in theology and served as State Attorney of the South African Republic from 1876 to 1877 under Thomas François Burgers.
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Willem Duynstee
1886 - 1968 (82 years)
Willem Duynstee was a Catholic priest, jurist, moralist, and professor born at Sittard, the Netherlands, in 1886. After gaining a doctorate in criminal law in 1908, Willem joined the Redemptorists and was ordained a priest in 1913. In 1935, he was the first to provide a Thomist understanding of psychological repression and therapy which was fundamentally different from that of the neurologist Sigmund Freud. Duynstee was proficient in the anthropology and philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, whereas Freud invented his own language and explanations for what became the onset of psychoanalysis.
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John Edgar McFadyen
1870 - 1933 (63 years)
John Edgar McFadyen B. A. , M. A., D. D. was a Scottish theologian, was professor of language, literature and Old Testament theology in the University of Glasgow. He was born in Glasgow and died in 1933.
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Stephan Praetorius
1536 - 1603 (67 years)
Stephan Praetorius was a German Lutheran theologian and pastor. His life and work Prætorius was born in Salzwedel, Margraviate of Brandenburg. He was educated at the University of Rostock, where he also taught in the local schools; was ordained by Agricola at Berlin in 1565; became preacher in the same year at the monastery of the Holy Ghost at Salzwedel, and soon after deacon of the Church of St. Mary's; and from 1569 until his death was pastor in Salzwedel.
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Hugh Black
1868 - 1953 (85 years)
Hugh Black was a Scottish-American theologian and author. Life Black was born on March 26, 1868, in Rothesay, Scotland. He received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Glasgow in 1887, and studied divinity at Free Church College Glasgow from 1887 until 1891. Black was ordained in 1891 and became associate pastor at St George's Free Church in Edinburgh in 1896, where he worked with Alexander Whyte.
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Stanislovas Rapolionis
1485 - 1545 (60 years)
Stanislovas Svetkus Rapolionis was a Lutheran activist and Protestant reformer from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With patronage of Albert, Duke of Prussia, he obtained the doctorate of theology from the Protestant University of Wittenberg where he studied under Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. After graduation, he became the first professor of theology at the newly established University of Königsberg, also known as Albertina. As professor he began working on several Protestant publications and translations, including a Bible translation into Polish. It is believed that he also started the first translation of the Bible into Lithuanian.
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Johannes van den Driesche
1550 - 1616 (66 years)
Johannes van den Driesche [or Drusius] was a Flemish Protestant divine, distinguished specially as an Orientalist, Christian Hebraist and exegete. Life He was born at Oudenarde, in Flanders. Intended for the church, he studied Greek and Latin at Ghent, and philosophy at Leuven; but his father having been outlawed for his religion, and deprived of his estate, retired to England, where the son followed him in 1567. He found a teacher of Hebrew in Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier, with whom he resided for some time at Cambridge. In 1572 he became professor of Oriental languages at Oxford.
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Cornelius van Steenoven
1661 - 1725 (64 years)
Cornelis van Steenoven was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest who later served as the seventh Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht from 1724 to 1725. Consecrated without the permission of the pope, Steenoven was at the center of the 18th-century controversy between national churches and what many considered to be the overreaching powers of the papacy.
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