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9903eb11d2d86b0752d03b5b41d05650 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Ansgar | Saint Ansgar | Saint Ansgar
Saint Ansgar, Ansgar also spelled Anskar, or Anschar, (born probably 801, near Corbie, Austrasia [France]—died Feb. 3, 865, Bremen, Saxony [Germany]; canonized 865; feast day February 3), missionary of medieval Europe, first archbishop of Hamburg, and the patron saint of Scandinavia.
Of noble birth, Ansgar entered the Benedictine abbey of Corbie in Picardy, where he was educated. After 823 he taught in the monastic school at Corvey (“New Corbie”), Westphalia, where he also began his pastoral work. When Harald, an exiled Danish king, appealed to the Carolingian emperor Louis I the Pious for support, Louis dispatched Ansgar to accompany and assist the king in evangelizing Denmark. Ansgar in 826 began short-lived missionary work in Schleswig. Harald’s downfall in 827 and the death of his assistant, Autbert, were blows to the mission, and in 829 Ansgar returned to the Franks. With the help of Witmar, a monk from Corvey, Ansgar began his evangelization of Sweden. The first to preach the gospel in Sweden, he was cordially received by King Björn.
Louis recalled Ansgar in 831, making him abbot of Corvey and bishop of the newly established diocese of Hamburg. Consecrated in 832, he initiated a mission to all the Scandinavian peoples and went to Rome, where Pope Gregory IV made him archbishop and papal legate to the Scandinavians and Slavs, thereby earning him the title of “the Apostle of the North.” At Hamburg, Ansgar founded a monastery and a school, and in 834 Louis endowed him with Turholt Abbey, to be used as the centre of his activities.
When Denmark had become united under King Haarik (Horec) I, he allowed the revival of Ansgar’s work in Schleswig. Ansgar lost Turholt after Louis I’s death (840); and in 845 Northmen destroyed Hamburg, and the Swedish missions were extinguished by the expulsion of Bishop Gautbert. Returning to paganism, Sweden and Denmark rejected Christianity.
In 847 Louis the German, king of the East Franks, made Ansgar bishop of Bremen, from where he revived and redirected his northern evangelization. He dispatched a missionary to Sweden in 851 and converted the succeeding Danish king Haarik II. He then went to Sweden (853–854), where the king (himself destined for conversion) allowed the Christian missionaries to preach. Ansgar succeeded in thwarting a pagan rebellion before returning to Bremen. He was proclaimed a saint by his successor, Rembert, and Pope Nicholas I the Great approved the proclamation.
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1a0297c75e65dccec56b36eafe28a8f3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Anterus | Saint Anterus | Saint Anterus
Saint Anterus, (born, Greece—died Jan. 3, 236, Rome; feast day January 3), pope for several weeks at the end of 235 and the beginning of 236. He was elected (possibly Nov. 21, 235) while St. Pontian, his predecessor, was condemned to the Sardinian mines. Anterus was soon prosecuted and sentenced to death. According to the Liber pontificalis, he was martyred for having ordered a collection of the acts of the martyrs to be made and included in the archives of the church.
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c6ef4d959d6991c602bb219b0854075d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Anthony-of-Egypt | St. Anthony of Egypt | St. Anthony of Egypt
St. Anthony of Egypt, also called St. Anthony the Great, Anthony also called Antony or Antonios, (born c. 251, Koma, near Al-Minyā, Heptanomis [Middle Egypt], Egypt—died January 17?, 356, Dayr Mārī Antonios hermitage, near the Red Sea; feast day January 17), religious hermit and one of the earliest Desert Fathers, considered the founder and father of organized Christian monasticism. His rule (book of observances) represented one of the first attempts to codify guidelines for monastic living.
A disciple of St. Paul of Thebes, Anthony began to practice an ascetic life at the age of 20 and after 15 years withdrew for absolute solitude to a mountain by the Nile called Pispir (now Dayr al-Maymūn), where he lived from about 286 to 305. During the course of this retreat, he began his legendary combat against the Devil, withstanding a series of temptations famous in Christian theology and iconography. About 305 he emerged from his retreat to instruct and organize the monastic life of the hermits who imitated him and who had established themselves nearby. When Christian persecution ended after the Edict of Milan (313), he moved to a mountain in the Eastern Desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, where the monastery Dayr Mārī Antonios still stands. There he remained, receiving visitors and, on occasion, crossing the desert to Pispir. He ventured twice to Alexandria, the last time (c. 350) to preach against Arianism, a heretical doctrine teaching that Christ the Son is not of the same substance as God the Father.
The early monks who followed Anthony into the desert considered themselves the vanguard of God’s army, and, by fasting and performing other ascetic practices, they attempted to attain the same state of spiritual purity and freedom from temptation that they saw realized in Anthony. Anthony’s spiritual combats with what he envisioned as the forces of evil made his life one long struggle against the Devil. According to St. Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, the Devil’s assault on Anthony took the form of visions, either seductive or horrible, experienced by the saint. For example, at times the Devil appeared in the guise of a monk bringing bread during his fasts or in the form of wild beasts, women, or soldiers, sometimes beating the saint and leaving him in a deathly state. Anthony endured many such attacks, and those who witnessed them were convinced they were real. Every vision conjured up by Satan was repelled by Anthony’s fervid prayer and penitential acts. So exotic were the visions and so steadfast was Anthony’s endurance that the subject of his temptations has often been used in literature and art, notably in the paintings of Hiëronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald, Max Ernst, Paul Cézanne, and Salvador Dalí as well as in the novel The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874) by Gustave Flaubert.
From these psychic struggles Anthony emerged as the sane and sensible father of Christian monasticism. The rule that bears his name was compiled from writings and discourses attributed to him in the Life of St. Antony by St. Athanasius and the Apophthegmata patrum and was still observed in the 20th century by a number of Coptic and Armenian monks.
Anthony’s popularity as a saint reached its height in the Middle Ages. The Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony was founded near Grenoble, France (c. 1100), and this institution became a pilgrimage centre for persons suffering from the disease known as St. Anthony’s fire (or ergotism). The black-robed Hospitallers, ringing small bells as they collected alms, were a common sight in many parts of western Europe. The bells of the Hospitallers, as well as their pigs—allowed by special privilege to run free in medieval streets—became part of the later iconography associated with St. Anthony.
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1f4baf87bd09230414d7e84f1ee6260b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Anthony-of-Padua | St. Anthony of Padua | St. Anthony of Padua
St. Anthony of Padua, Anthony also spelled Antony, Italian Sant’Antonio da Padova, original name Fernando Martins de Bulhões, (born 1195, Lisbon, Portugal—died June 13, 1231, Arcella, Verona [Italy]; canonized 1232; feast day June 13), Franciscan friar, doctor of the church, and patron of the poor. Padua and Portugal claim him as their patron saint, and he is invoked for the return of lost property.
Anthony was born into a wealthy family and was raised in the church. He joined the Augustinian canons in 1210 and probably became a priest. In 1220 he joined the Franciscan order, hoping to preach to the Saracens (Muslims) and be martyred. On his way to Morocco, he became seriously ill and was forced to return home. However, his ship back to Portugal was blown off course and eventually landed in Sicily. Because of his continuing poor health, he was not allowed to pursue his missionary work among the Saracens. Instead, he taught theology at Bologna, Italy, and at Montpellier, Toulouse, and Puy-en-Velay in southern France. He won great admiration as a preacher and was noted for his simple yet profound teaching of the Catholic faith. He died en route to Padua, Italy, where he is buried.
Anthony was the most celebrated of St. Francis of Assisi’s followers and had the reputation of a miracle worker. On January 16, 1946, Pope Pius XII declared him a doctor of the church. In art he is shown with a book, a heart, a flame, a lily, or the child Jesus. Among his authentic writings are sermons for Sundays and feast days, published at Padua in three volumes in 1979.
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36dc7580f1091d0938606b94b687e31f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Barbara | St. Barbara | St. Barbara
St. Barbara, (died c. 200 ce; feast day December 4), legendary virgin martyr of the early church. Venerated as one of the 14 Auxiliary Saints (Holy Helpers), she is invoked in thunderstorms and is the patron saint of artillerymen and miners. Because Barbara’s authenticity is highly questionable and her legend is probably spurious, she was dropped from the General Roman Calendar in 1969.
According to legend, which dates only to the 7th century, she was the beautiful daughter of a pagan, Dioscorus, who kept her guarded in a tower to protect her from harm. When she professed Christianity and refused marriage, he became enraged and took her to the provincial prefect, who ordered her to be tortured and beheaded. Dioscorus himself performed the execution and, upon his return home, was struck by lightning and reduced to ashes.
Some accounts name the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis, others Nicomedia or a town in Tuscany, as the scene of her sufferings. The original Greek accounts of her martyrdom are lost, but Syriac, Latin, and other versions are extant. Her story, reproduced in great detail in Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea (1255–66; Golden Legend, 1483), was popular in the Middle Ages.
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eac19dea8a504ee5dd4fd3474e471fe6 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bartholomew | Saint Bartholomew | Saint Bartholomew
Saint Bartholomew, (flourished 1st century ad—died unknown date, traditionally Albanopolis, Armenia; Western feast day August 24; date varies in Eastern churches), one of the Twelve Apostles.
Apart from the mentions of him in four of the Apostle lists (Mark 3:18, Matt. 10:3, Luke 6:14, and Acts 1:13), nothing is known about him from the New Testament. Bartholomew is a family name meaning “son of [Hebrew: bar] Tolmai, or Talmai,” so he may have had another personal name. For that reason and because he was always associated with St. Philip the Apostle in the Gospel lists, a 9th-century tradition identified him with Nathanael, who, according to John 1:43–51, was called with Philip by Jesus. Upon seeing Nathanael, Jesus said, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” This identification sought to explain how the otherwise unknown Bartholomew could be mentioned in the Apostle lists, while Nathanael, whose call is explicitly described by John, does not figure in them. His full name would then be Nathanael bar Tolmai.
The 4th-century Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical History relates that, when the 2nd-century teacher St. Pantaenus of Alexandria made a visit to India, he found a Hebrew copy of The Gospel According to Matthew, which had been left behind there by Bartholomew. Traditionally, Bartholomew also served as a missionary to Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia (in modern Iran), Lycaonia (in modern Turkey), and Armenia. The apostle is said to have been martyred by flaying and beheading at the command of the Armenian king Astyages. His relics were supposedly taken to the Church of St. Bartholomew-in-the-Tiber, Rome.
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9fe4736f17335ff9cdc3d97709628e6a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bartholomew-Amidei | Saint Bartholomew Amidei | Saint Bartholomew Amidei
John Bonagiunta, Benedict dell’Antella, Bartholomew Amidei, Gerard Sostegni, and Ricoverus Uguccione. Formally Ordo Fratrum Servorum Sanctae Mariae (“Order of Friar Servants of St. Mary”), the order is a Roman Catholic congregation of mendicant friars dedicated to apostolic work.
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0fb7719718bff99e4e918086f92b8c99 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bonaventure | Saint Bonaventure | Saint Bonaventure
Saint Bonaventure, Italian San Bonaventura, original name Giovanni Di Fidanza, (born c. 1217, Bagnoregio, Papal States—died July 15, 1274, Lyon; canonized April 14, 1482; feast day July 15), leading medieval theologian, minister general of the Franciscan order, and cardinal bishop of Albano. He wrote several works on the spiritual life and recodified the constitution of his order (1260). He was declared a doctor (teacher) of the church in 1587.
He was a son of Giovanni of Fidanza, a physician, and Maria of Ritella. He fell ill while a boy and, according to his own words, was saved from death by the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. Entering the University of Paris in 1235, he received the master of arts degree in 1243 and then joined the Franciscan order, which named him Bonaventure in 1244. He studied theology in the Franciscan school at Paris from 1243 to 1248. His masters, especially Alexander of Hales, recognized in him a student with a keen memory and unusual intelligence. He was also under the tutelage of John of La Rochelle. After their deaths (1245) he studied further under Eudes Rigauld and William of Meliton. He was later probably influenced by the Dominican Guerric of Saint-Quentin.
By turning the pursuit of truth into a form of divine worship, he integrated his study of theology with the Franciscan mode of the mendicant life. In 1248, he began to teach the Bible; from 1251 to 1253 he lectured on the Sentences, a medieval theology textbook by Peter Lombard, an Italian theologian of the 12th century, and he became a master of theology in 1254, when he assumed control of the Franciscan school in Paris. He taught there until 1257, producing many works, notably commentaries on the Bible and the Sentences and the Breviloquium (“Summary”), which presented a summary of his theology. These works showed his deep understanding of Scripture and the Fathers of the early church—principally St. Augustine—and a wide knowledge of the philosophers, particularly Aristotle.
Bonaventure was particularly noted in his day as a man with the rare ability to reconcile diverse traditions in theology and philosophy. He united different doctrines in a synthesis containing his personal conception of truth as a road to the love of God. In 1256 he defended the Franciscan ideal of the Christian life against William of Saint-Amour, a university teacher who accused the mendicants (friars who wandered about and begged for a living) of defaming the Gospel by their practice of poverty and who wanted to prevent the Franciscans and their fellow mendicants, the Dominicans, from attaining teaching positions. Bonaventure’s defense of the Franciscans and his personal probity as a member of his religious order led to his election as minister general of the Franciscans on Feb. 2, 1257.
Founded by St. Francis according to strict views about poverty, the Franciscan order was at that time undergoing internal discord. One group, the Spirituals, disrupted the order by a rigorous view of poverty; another, the Relaxati, disturbed it by a laxity of life. Bonaventure used his authority so prudently that, placating the first group and reproving the second, he preserved the unity of the order and reformed it in the spirit of St. Francis. The work of restoration and reconciliation owed its success to Bonaventure’s tireless visits, despite delicate health, to each province of the order and to his own personal realization of the Franciscan ideal. In his travels, he preached the Gospel constantly and so elegantly that he was recognized everywhere as a most eloquent preacher. As a theologian, he based the revival of the order on his conception of the spiritual life, which he expounded in mystical treatises manifesting his Franciscan experience of contemplation as a perfection of the Christian life. His Journey of the Mind to God (1259) was a masterpiece showing the way by which man as a creature ought to love and contemplate God through Christ after the example of St. Francis. Revered by his order, Bonaventure recodified its constitutions (1260), wrote for it a new Life of St. Francis of Assisi (1263), and protected it (1269) from an assault by Gerard of Abbeville, a teacher of theology at Paris, who renewed the charge of William of Saint-Amour. He also protected the church during the period 1267–73 by upholding the Christian faith while denouncing the views of unorthodox masters at Paris who contradicted revelation in their philosophy.
Bonaventure’s wisdom and ability to reconcile opposing views moved Pope Gregory X to name him cardinal bishop of Albano, Italy, in May 1273, though Bonaventure had declined to accept appointment to the see of York, England, from Pope Clement IV in 1265. Gregory consecrated him in November at Lyon, where he resigned as minister general of the Franciscans in May 1274. At the second Council of Lyon he was the leading figure in the reform of the church, reconciling the secular (parish) clergy with the mendicant orders. He also had a part in restoring the Greek church to union with Rome. His death, at the council, was viewed as the loss of a wise and holy man, full of compassion and virtue, captivating with love all who knew him. He was buried the same day in a Franciscan church with the pope in attendance. The respect and love that was held for Bonaventure is exemplified in the formal announcement of the council: “At the funeral there was much sorrow and tears; for the Lord has given him this grace, that all who saw him were filled with an immense love for him.” His exemplary life as a Franciscan and the continual influence of his doctrine on the life and devotion of the Western church won for him a declaration of sanctity by Pope Sixtus IV; he was designated a doctor of the church by Sixtus V.
Modern scholars consider him to have been one of the foremost men of his age, an intrepid defender of human and divine truth, and an outstanding exponent of a mystical and Christian wisdom.
The critical edition of St. Bonaventure’s works is Opera omnia, 10 vol. (1882–1902). Translations of his works by Jose de Vinck are “The Journey of the Mind to God,” in vol. 1 of The Works of Bonaventure (1960); and vol. 2, Breviloquium (1963).
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2b5502ba2b610e6fac1022453f758376 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bonfilius | Saint Bonfilius | Saint Bonfilius
…Seven Holy Founders are Saints Bonfilius, Alexis Falconieri, John Bonagiunta, Benedict dell’Antella, Bartholomew Amidei, Gerard Sostegni, and Ricoverus Uguccione. Formally Ordo Fratrum Servorum Sanctae Mariae (“Order of Friar Servants of St. Mary”), the order is a Roman Catholic congregation of
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0adbdebdf1f331a40231d79d36d0661f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Boniface | Saint Boniface | Saint Boniface
Saint Boniface, Latin Bonifatius, original name Wynfrid or Wynfrith, (born c. 675, Wessex, England—died June 5, 754, Dokkum, Frisia [now in the Netherlands]; feast day June 5), English missionary and reformer, often called the apostle of Germany for his role in the Christianization of that country. Boniface set the church in Germany on a firm course of undeviating piety and irreproachable conduct. In his letters and in the writings of his contemporaries, he appears as a man of purpose and dedication, an innovator with a powerful though willful personality.
Boniface belonged to a noble family of Wessex, England. He received an excellent education in the Benedictine abbeys of Adescancastre (Exeter) and Nhutscelle (Nursling, between Winchester and Southampton) and became a Benedictine monk, being ordained priest at about age 30. From 716 to 722 he made two attempts to evangelize the Frisian Saxons on the Continent but was balked by their king, Radbod. On his return to England he learned that his abbot had died and that he had been elected in his stead—an honour he declined in favour of a second attempt at a missionary career. In 718 he accompanied a group of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims to Rome, where Pope Gregory II entrusted him with a mission to the pagans east of the Rhine, asking him only to use the Roman formula for baptism, rather than the Celtic, and to consult with Rome on major problems arising from his work. Gregory II changed Wynfrid’s name to Boniface. In the meantime, Radbod had died (719), and Boniface returned to Frisia to assist his countryman Bishop Willibrord in his missionary activities. In 722 he went to Hesse, where he established the first of many Benedictine monasteries as a means of consolidating his work.
So great was his success that he was called to Rome, where Gregory consecrated him a missionary bishop. The pope also provided him with a collection of canons (ecclesiastical regulations) and letters of recommendation to such important personages as Charles Martel, master of the Frankish kingdom, whose protection was essential to Boniface’s success. It was the pagan awe of Martel’s name that allowed Boniface to destroy the sacred oak of the Germanic god Thor at Geismar.
For 10 years (725–735) Boniface was active in Thuringia, converting pagans and renewing the faith of Christians who had been converted earlier by Irish missionaries, whose haphazard methods of evangelization were henceforth to be the bane of Boniface’s life. He met opposition, he said, “from ambitious and free-living clerics” whom he pursued relentlessly, even when they appealed to the popes. On a later occasion, Pope St. Zacharias was forced to moderate the zeal of Boniface, who requested not only excommunication but also solitary confinement for two “heretical” missionaries, Adalbert and Clement the Irishman—sentences that the pope avoided imposing by deliberate delay. Boniface’s handling of missionaries whose methods he deplored sheds light on his personality and temperament: he turned immediately to Rome, he expected prompt and ruthless action, and he seems at times to have been excessively severe in his judgments.
Boniface’s career was assisted in a unique and moving way by his brother and sister Benedictines from England. They supported him by gifts and encouraged him by their faithful love, expressed in letters that were delightful in their openness and humanity. Their final expression of love for him was to cast their lots with him in Germany, where they formed the nucleus of four monasteries that served as centres of civilized Christian life.
Ordered by Pope Gregory III (731–741) to organize the church in Bavaria, Boniface initially established four bishoprics there. His work had far-reaching political repercussions, for his Christianization of Bavaria paved the way for the ultimate incorporation of the country into the Carolingian empire. After 740 he added another see in Bavaria and also created three in central Germany. Aided by his new suffragan bishops—for such they were, in fact, though his appointment as archbishop of Mainz came later (751)—Boniface undertook the reform of the Frankish clergy and, wherever possible, of Irish missionaries. Between 740 and 745, five synods were convened for this purpose. In 747 a reforming council was held for the entire Frankish kingdom with the wholehearted collaboration of Carloman and Pippin, the sons and heirs of Charles Martel. Though Charles had protected Boniface, he had, at the same time, given church land to his magnates and used the discipline of the church as a means of taming recalcitrant Germanic tribes. Carloman and Pippin, on the other hand, made the decisions of the council of 747 binding in Frankish law.
Boniface’s life ended in martyrdom at the hands of a band of pagan Frisians, who killed him as he was reading the Scriptures to Christian neophytes on Pentecost Sunday. Boniface had asked to be buried at Fulda, the monastery he had entrusted (744) to his Bavarian disciple Sturmi. There his body rests in a magnificent baroque sarcophagus.
Organizer, educator, and reformer, Boniface profoundly influenced the course of intellectual, political, and ecclesiastical history in Germany and France throughout the Middle Ages. He unified the missionary movement by bringing it under the control of Rome. Through his monasteries, which furnished bishops and teachers for many generations, he significantly improved the quality of life in the Frankish kingdom.
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2c48f1c90bb1d50f8a5123585c0fa5a1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bruno-the-Carthusian | Saint Bruno the Carthusian | Saint Bruno the Carthusian
Saint Bruno the Carthusian, also called Saint Bruno Of Cologne, (born c. 1030, Cologne—died Oct. 6, 1101, La Torre monastery, Calabria; canonized 1514; feast day October 6), founder of the Carthusian order who was noted for his learning and for his sanctity.
Ordained at Cologne, in 1057 Bruno was called to Reims, Fr., by Archbishop Gervase to become head of the cathedral school and overseer of the schools of the diocese. Among his pupils was Eudes de Châtillon, later Pope Urban II. Bruno was made chancellor of the church of Reims in 1075. Having protested against the misdoings of the new archbishop Manasses de Gournai, he was deprived of all his offices and fled to safety (1076). On the deposition of the Archbishop (1080), Bruno was presented to the pope by the ecclesiastical authorities for the see, but he refused, for he had already determined to forsake the world. With six companions, he was led to a place called Chartreuse in the mountains near Grenoble, Fr., by St. Hugh of Châteauneuf, bishop of Grenoble. There the seven retired, building a monastery and founding the Carthusian order (1084). Bruno did not write a rule for the order, but the customs he established, modifying the Benedictine Rule, became the basis for the new foundations. After six years Pope Urban II called Bruno to Rome and offered him the archbishopric of Reggio, Italy, which he refused. He then retired to Calabria where he established his second colony of hermits at La Torre.
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02475ea3cb97ad2a2105805247fcc432 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bruno-the-Great | Saint Bruno the Great | Saint Bruno the Great
Saint Bruno the Great, (born 925, Cologne—died October 11, 965, Reims, Champagne; feast day October 11), archbishop of Cologne and coregent of the Holy Roman Empire.
The youngest son of King Henry I the Fowler of Germany and St. Matilda, and brother of Emperor Otto I the Great, Bruno was educated at the cathedral school of Utrecht and the court school of Otto. Proficient in Latin and Greek, he was a patron of learning. As chancellor from 940, he prepared his brother’s official papers and after ordination to the priesthood accompanied him to Italy in 951. Already abbot of Lorsch and Corvey, where he restored monastic observance, he was elected to the see of Cologne in 953 and soon was named duke of Lorraine by Otto. As bishop, Bruno was a zealous and exemplary pastor, and his episcopate marked a new epoch in the city’s growth; among the many institutions he founded was the monastery of St. Pantaleon at Cologne. In the troubled duchy of Lorraine, by his prudent and statesmanlike policies he restored peace and devised a new administrative division, maintaining at the same time cordial relations with France. During Otto’s absence in Italy for his imperial coronation (962), Bruno shared the responsibilities of government and care of the Emperor’s son, Otto II. Bruno died on a mission to France and was buried at St. Pantaleon.
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b85680e16b2dc7c023b5d8f12dfd9f85 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Cajetan-of-Thiene | St. Cajetan of Thiene | St. Cajetan of Thiene
St. Cajetan of Thiene, Italian San Gaetano da Thiene, Thiene also spelled Tiene, (born October 1480, Vicenza, Republic of Venice—died August 7, 1547, Naples; canonized 1671; feast day August 7), Venetian priest who cofounded the Theatine order and became an important figure of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. He is the patron saint of Argentina and of gamblers and the unemployed.
Receiving his doctorate in civil and canon law at Padua (1504), he was appointed a prothonotary (clerk) in the Roman Curia by Pope Julius II in 1506. Associated with the local Oratory of Divine Love in Rome, Cajetan was ordained in 1516 and continued the charitable works characteristic of the association. He revitalized oratories at Vicenza (1518) and at Verona (1519); at Venice (1522) he founded a hospital for the incurably ill and a local branch of the oratory.
Returning to Rome in 1523, he met Archbishop Gian Pietro Carafa, the future Pope Paul IV. In 1524 they established the Congregation of Clerics Regular (Theatines) to further the ideals of the Oratory of Divine Love among diocesan priests and to promote clerical reform through asceticism and apostolic work. After Emperor Charles V sacked Rome, Carafa and Cajetan escaped to Venice in 1527. Following his dispatch as Theatine superior to Naples (1533), Cajetan created a centre of Catholic reform at the church of San Paolo Maggiore in May 1538. He also founded a charitable nonprofit bank to help protect the poor from usury; it later became the Banco di Napoli (Bank of Naples). Except for 1540–43, when he was at Venice, he remained at Naples until his death.
He was beatified by Pope Urban VIII in 1629 and was canonized by Pope Clement X in 1671. In art he is often depicted holding the child Jesus, which represents a vision he had of Mary handing him her child on Christmas Day.
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34c97ee797d9b768854b9dd9925ffea1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Catherine-of-Sweden | Saint Catherine of Sweden | Saint Catherine of Sweden
Saint Catherine of Sweden, Swedish Sankta Katarina, original name Katarina Ulfsdotter, (born 1331/32, Sweden—died March 24, 1381, Vadstena; feast day March 24), daughter of St. Bridget of Sweden, whom she succeeded as superior of the Brigittines.
Catherine was married to Egard Lydersson von Kyren, who died shortly after she left for Rome (1350) to join Bridget as her constant companion. She did not return to Sweden until after Bridget’s death in 1373. She took part in the ecclesiastical controversies of her time, supported Pope Urban VI against the antipope Clement VII, and promoted the canonization of Bridget. She was abbess of Vadstena when she died. She was never formally canonized but is listed in the Roman martyrology.
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9cb7c3c6f790194516c065e89aacb570 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Ceolfrith | Saint Ceolfrith | Saint Ceolfrith
Ceolfrith, prior and later his successor at Wearmouth, Benedict went to Rome c. 678, returning with an instructor in ecclesiastical music. In 682 he built the sister foundation of St. Paul at Jarrow, returning in 687 to Rome.
Benedict and Ceolfrith, abbot of Jarrow, brought books from the Continent and assembled the fine library that was available to Bede.
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e3668bb505491d313f75b31de4261eb2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Cyprian-Christian-bishop | St. Cyprian | St. Cyprian
St. Cyprian, Latin in full Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, (born 200 ce, Carthage—died September 14, 258, Carthage; Western and Eastern feast day September 16; Anglican feast day September 26), early Christian theologian and bishop of Carthage who led the Christians of North Africa during a period of persecution from Rome. Upon his execution he became the first bishop-martyr of Africa.
Cyprian was born of wealthy pagan parents and was educated in law. He practiced as a lawyer in Carthage before he was converted to Christianity about 246. In baptism he found complete release from the sinful and useless life he believed he had led hitherto. Within two years he was elected bishop of Carthage and a few months later, early in 250, was confronted by the Decian persecution. He went into hiding. Bereft of his leadership, thousands of Christians apostatized (rejected their faith) or obtained libelli (certificates), by which they declared that they had sacrificed to the pagan gods. When the persecution began to diminish, the confessors—i.e., those who had stood firm for their faith—reconciled the lapsed on easy terms, claiming that as “friends of Christ” they had the right of granting pardon, even more than did priests and bishops.
Cyprian returned to Carthage (early 251) and at a council of bishops in May 251 was able to regain his authority. The decision of the council was that, though no one should be totally excluded from penance, those who truly had sacrificed their faith (the sacrificati) should be readmitted only on their deathbeds, and those who had merely accepted certificates (the libellatici) were to be readmitted after varying periods of penance. Three important principles of church discipline were thus established. First, the right and power to remit deadly sins, even that of apostasy, lay in the hands of the church; second, the final authority in disciplinary matters rested with the bishops in council as repositories of the Holy Spirit; and, third, unworthy members among the laity must be accepted in the New Israel of Christianity just as in the Old Israel of Judaism.
In 252 a renewed threat of persecution by the emperor Gallus encouraged a speedier reintegration of the lapsed, because many now wanted to prove themselves as martyrs. In the same year, the steadfastness of the Christian clergy in face of a plague won for the church further popular support, and Cyprian defeated internal enemies who had set up a rival bishop in Carthage.
In the summer of 254 his position was tested again, by a dispute with Stephen, bishop of Rome (254–257). Until then relations between the churches of Carthage and Rome had been cordial. In 251 Cyprian had supported Bishop Cornelius against his rival, Novatian, and had written on his behalf the treatise On the Unity of the Catholic Church, which stressed the centrality of the see of Peter (Rome) as the source of the episcopacy. Though Cyprian may have written two drafts of an important passage concerning the primacy of the chair of Peter, he implied no acceptance of Roman jurisdictional prerogatives. When in 254 two Spanish congregations (Mérida and León) appealed to him against a decision by Stephen to restore bishops who had lapsed during the persecution, he summoned a council to consider the case. The council decided that the congregations not only had a right but a duty to separate themselves from a cleric who had committed a deadly sin such as apostasy. Cyprian wrote (Letter 67) that the Holy Spirit was no longer in such a priest and that his sacraments would lead to perdition and not salvation. The church as the “pure Bride of Christ” might be obliged to absorb a sinful laity, but a sinful priest making offerings on behalf of the people was unthinkable.
Within months there was an even more serious dispute with Rome. For a few years the supporters of Novatian had been active in Africa, asserting against Cyprian that no forgiveness for lapsed Christians was possible. With the recovery of Cyprian’s prestige, however, their threat began to fade. Many of those whom they had baptized clamoured to be admitted to the church. Was their baptism valid or not? In Rome, Stephen, confronted by the same problem, decided that all baptism in the name of the Trinity was valid. The Africans at first were of two minds on the issue, and Cyprian held three councils between the autumn of 255 and September 256. The last, at which 87 bishops were present, decided unanimously that there could be no baptism outside the church, just as there could not be faith, hope, or salvation for those outside it. A minister could not dispense what he himself did not possess—namely, the Holy Spirit. Those who had received baptism from Novatianists had to be baptized anew. Behind this clash over rites lay the more fundamental question concerning the nature of the church. Though Rome emphasized the church’s universal and inevitably mixed character on earth, the North Africans stressed its integrity under all circumstances. Baptism entailed total renunciation of the world and the reception of the Spirit.
A complete breach between Rome and Carthage was averted by Stephen’s death on August 2, 257, and his successor, Sixtus II, was more conciliatory. Meanwhile, persecution had been renewed by the emperor Valerian (253–260). On August 30, 257, Cyprian was summoned before the proconsul, Aspasius Paternus, and was assigned an enforced residence at Curubis (Kurba) on the Gulf of Hammamet. Following a more severe edict the next year, he was brought back to Carthage, tried, and condemned to death.
During the previous seven years his character had matured, and he had shown himself to be a brave and resourceful leader of the church in Africa. His theology was based on the central idea of the unity and uniqueness of the church: “He no longer has God for his Father, who does not have the Church for his mother” (On the Unity of the Catholic Church). Unity was expressed through the consensus of bishops, all equally possessing the Holy Spirit and sovereign in their own sees. The church consisted of the people united to their bishop. Schism and rebellion against the priesthood were viewed as the worst of sins. These views—associated with an uncompromising insistence on the integrity and exclusive character of the church, which are believed to have been derived from the North African theologian Tertullian—received divine sanction for most North African Christians through his martyrdom.
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2d58e3553b1d1131414f239107b3a903 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Cyril-of-Jerusalem | Saint Cyril of Jerusalem | Saint Cyril of Jerusalem
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, (born c. 315, Jerusalem—died 386?, Jerusalem; feast day March 18), bishop of Jerusalem and doctor of the church who fostered the development of the “holy city” as a pilgrimage centre for all Christendom.
A senior presbyter when he succeeded Maximus as bishop (c. 350), Cyril was exiled about 357 and at two later times from his see by the Arians. Many years later at the Council of Constantinople (381) there was evidence that he might have been suspected by the strictly orthodox for his associations with the Homoiousians (moderate Arians), who had reinstated him as bishop at the Council of Seleucia (359). He retained his bishopric during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363).
Cyril’s primary surviving work is a collection of 23 catechetical lectures (Catecheses) delivered to candidates for Baptism. The first 18, based on the Jerusalem baptismal creed, were given during Lent, and the concluding 5 instructed the newly baptized during the week after Easter. Cyril was declared a doctor of the church in 1883.
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969a0011a2bb6e8b0836e6ae134a8f15 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Dionysius-of-Alexandria | Saint Dionysius of Alexandria | Saint Dionysius of Alexandria
Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, also called Saint Dionysius The Great, (born c. 200, Alexandria—died c. 265, Alexandria; feast day November 17), bishop of Alexandria, then the most important Eastern see, and a chief opponent of Sabellianism (q.v.).
A Christian convert, Dionysius studied in Alexandria at the catechetical school headed by Origen, whom in 231/232 he was elected to succeed. In 247/248 he became bishop of Alexandria. During the persecution (250–251) of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius, Dionysius fled to the Libyan Desert, and he was again exiled in the Valerian persecution (257–260).
On his return to Alexandria in about 260, Dionysius favoured readmitting penitent apostates to the church in opposition to those who wanted to exclude them permanently. Engaged in the bitter controversy over baptism performed by heretics, Dionysius did not insist on rebaptizing converts who had received heretical baptism, but he recognized the right of communities to rebaptize if they preferred. He denied that the Book of Revelation was written by St. John the Evangelist and denounced the Millenarians, who, basing their argument on a literal reading of Revelation, believed that after 1,000 years Jesus Christ would return and establish his kingdom on Earth.
Dionysius was especially noted for his attacks on the Sabellians, who accused him of separating the persons of the Trinity (tritheism) and other heresies. Protests were sent to Pope St. Dionysius in Rome, who condemned those who denied any distinction between the persons of the Trinity and those who acknowledged three separate persons. Dionysius of Alexandria accepted the Pope’s judgment and repudiated the Sabellians’ charges, but he insisted that the Trinity consisted of three inseparable persons. His position has since been vindicated by the church.
Dionysius also wrote a treatise on nature against the atomism of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. Though highly esteemed and often cited by the leading Byzantine theologians, his works are known only from quotations, many of them extensive, preserved by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea and other ecclesiastical writers.
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897124796ec05e5d99a3caacdc38b253 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Dunstan-of-Canterbury | Saint Dunstan of Canterbury | Saint Dunstan of Canterbury
Saint Dunstan of Canterbury, (born 924, near Glastonbury, Eng.—died May 19, 988, Canterbury; feast day May 19), English abbot, celebrated archbishop of Canterbury, and a chief adviser to the kings of Wessex, who is best known for the major monastic reforms that he effected.
Of noble birth, Dunstan was educated by Irish monks and visitors at Glastonbury. Later he entered first the household of his uncle, Archbishop Aethelhelm of Canterbury, and then the court of Athelstan, king of the English. Maliciously accused of practicing the black arts, he took refuge with his kinsman Aelfheah (Elphege), bishop of Winchester, who influenced him to become a monk and later ordained him.
Dunstan then lived as a hermit at Glastonbury, where he learned various crafts and music until Athelstan’s successor, Edmund I, recalled Dunstan as one of his counsellors. About 943 Edmund made him abbot of Glastonbury, and under Dunstan the abbey became a famous school. Under Edmund’s successor, Eadred, Dunstan became the chief minister of state, in which capacity he sought to establish royal authority, to conciliate the Danish section of the kingdom, to eradicate heathenism, and to reform clergy and laity.
On the accession in 955 of King Eadwig (Edwy), however, Dunstan’s influence and office were temporarily eclipsed. He apparently quarrelled with Eadwig and was outlawed, being driven to Flanders. At the abbey of Blandinium he studied continental monasticism, which he used as a chief source in restructuring English monasticism when recalled by King Edgar in 957. In the same year, Edgar made him bishop of Worcester and London. In 959 Eadwig died, Edgar became sole king of the English, and Dunstan was appointed archbishop of Canterbury. During this period intellectual activity flourished, and Dunstan personally reformed and reestablished several celebrated monasteries and sponsored missionaries to Scandinavia.
On Edgar’s death, in 975, Dunstan secured the crown for Edgar’s elder son, later known as St. Edward the Martyr. When Edward was murdered (978) and was succeeded by Ethelred (Aethelred) II, Dunstan’s public career abated, and he retired to Canterbury, where he taught at the cathedral school.
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59e6bba4741f411e592c728dcc74129d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Eleutherius | Saint Eleutherius | Saint Eleutherius
Saint Eleutherius, (born, Nicopolis, Epirus, Roman Empire [now in Greece]—died May 24, 189, Rome; feast day May 26), pope from about 175 to 189. During his pontificate the church was involved in a controversy over Montanism, a movement that arose in Asia Minor among Christians who believed that new spiritual revelations could be achieved through the ecstatic trances of their prophets.
The early Christian writer St. Hegesippus says that Eleutherius was deacon of the Roman church under Pope St. Anicetus (c. 155–c. 166). He was pope in the reign of Commodus (Roman emperor 180–192 and coruler with his father, Marcus Aurelius, 176–180), who was relatively tolerant of the Christians. Eleutherius had been devoting close attention to the Montanist controversy when, in 177, Christians in the Lyon area wrote him expressing their opinion of the teachings of the prophet Montanus. Although the letter has been lost, it is believed to have asked Eleutherius to show mercy but not to compromise with followers of the movement. The churches of Lyon and Vienne, Fr., sent the letter by Bishop St. Irenaeus of Lyon, who was delegated to advise Eleutherius.
The opposition of Eleutherius to the Montanist movement has been noted, but the nature of his mediation in the dispute is not known. Modern historians agree in rejecting the legend that a king of Britain named Lucius wrote Eleutherius asking the pope to send missionaries.
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23b588ad42262ca130ecf4ed5b406c30 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Elizabeth-Ann-Seton | St. Elizabeth Ann Seton | St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, née Elizabeth Ann Bayley, (born August 28, 1774, New York, New York [U.S.]—died January 4, 1821, Emmitsburg, Maryland, U.S.; canonized 1975; feast day January 4), first native-born American to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. She was the founder of the Sisters of Charity, the first American religious society.
Elizabeth Bayley was the daughter of a distinguished physician. She devoted a good deal of time to working among the poor, and in 1797 she joined Isabella M. Graham and others in founding the first charitable institution in New York City, the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, serving as the organization’s treasurer for seven years. She had married William M. Seton in 1794, and in 1803 they and the eldest of their five children traveled to Italy for his health. Nevertheless, in part perhaps as an aftereffect of his bankruptcy three years earlier, he died there of tuberculosis in December.
As a result of her experiences and acquaintances in Italy, Seton joined the Roman Catholic Church in New York City in 1805. Herself now a widow with small children, she found it difficult to earn a living, and many friends and relatives shunned her after her conversion (the various anti-Catholic laws of the colonial era had only recently been lifted). For a time she operated a small school for boys. In 1808 Seton accepted an invitation from the priest (later bishop) Louis William Dubourg, president of St. Mary’s College in Baltimore, Maryland, to open a school for Catholic girls in that city. Several young women joined in her work, and in 1809 her long-held hope to found a religious community was realized when she and her companions took vows before Archbishop John Carroll and became the Sisters of St. Joseph, the first American-based Catholic sisterhood. A few months later Mother Seton and the sisters moved their home and school to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where they provided free education for the poor girls of the parish—an act later considered by many to be the beginning of Catholic parochial education in the United States.
In 1812 the order became the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph under a modification of the rule of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Houses of the order were opened in Philadelphia in 1814 and in New York City in 1817. Mother Seton continued to teach and work for the community until her death in 1821, by which time the order had 20 communities. In 1856 Seton Hall College (now Seton Hall University) in South Orange Village, New Jersey, was named for her, and in 1885 the Sisters of Charity founded Seton Hill Junior College (now Seton Hill University) in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in her honour. She was canonized in September 1975.
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ec748cd5c7db2a19a957839ac9f1a08d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Evaristus | Saint Evaristus | Saint Evaristus
Saint Evaristus, (born, Antioch?, Syria—died c. 107, Rome; feast day October 6), pope from c. 97 to c. 107 during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan. He was the fifth pope and the immediate successor of St. Clement I. Though he is usually called a martyr, his martyrdom is unproved.
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08fc5aa22d4076c8fd99a372379e35f2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Fabian | Saint Fabian | Saint Fabian
Saint Fabian, Latin Fabianus, (died Jan. 20, 250, Rome; feast day January 20), pope from 236 to 250. The successor to St. Anterus, Fabian was an outstanding administrator and one of the great popes of the early church. He supposedly divided Rome into seven districts assigned to the seven deacons and is said to have founded several churches in France. His appointment of notaries to register the deeds of the martyrs reflected the increasing precision with which the Roman Catholic church began to keep records during his time. Martyred during the persecution of the Roman emperor Decius, he was buried in the catacomb of St. Calixtus; his body was later moved to St. Sebastian’s, where his tomb was found in 1915.
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4f56eb2463e6947f955a7e6bb6426c93 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Felix-I | Saint Felix I | Saint Felix I
Saint Felix I, (died Dec. 30, 274, Rome; feast day May 30), pope from 269 to 274. Elected to succeed St. Dionysius, Felix was the author of an important dogmatic letter on the unity of Christ’s Person. He received the emperor Aurelian’s aid in settling a theological dispute between the anti-Trinitarian Paul of Samosata, the deposed bishop of Antioch, and the orthodox Domnus, Paul’s successor. Some claim Felix was buried in the basilica he built on the Via Aurelia; others believe he was buried in the catacomb of St. Calixtus and mistakenly called a martyr.
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516fc8679b3f8d282d47fb6411ac2fd6 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Francis-Borgia | Saint Francis Borgia | Saint Francis Borgia
Saint Francis Borgia, Spanish San Francisco de Borjia, original name Francisco de Borja y Aragon, 4e duque (4th duke) de Gandīa, (born Oct. 28, 1510, Gandía, Spain—died Sept. 30/Oct. 1, 1572, Rome; canonized 1671; feast day October 10), Spanish nobleman who, as the third general of the Society of Jesus, was instrumental in spreading the Jesuits’ influence throughout Europe.
Educated at Saragossa, Spain, he married Eleanor de Castro, a Portuguese noblewoman, in 1529. After holding various appointments in the court of King Charles I of Spain, he was made viceroy of the Spanish region of Catalonia (1539), where he tried to carry out badly needed social and economic reforms. He resigned in 1543 when he succeeded to his father’s dukedom.
After Eleanor’s death in 1546, Borgia entered the Society of Jesus. He founded the Jesuit College in Gandía, which was made a university by papal bull in 1547. In 1550 he went to Rome, where he was received by St. Ignatius Loyola, and his entry into the society was made public. He returned to Spain (1551), where he was ordained a priest. Ignatius named him commissary general of the Spanish provinces in 1554, and he was chosen general of the society in 1565.
Under his leadership new provinces and colleges were established in Europe. Although his mission to Spanish Florida proved unsuccessful, the provinces of Peru and New Spain were established. He urged Pope St. Pius V to adopt two important policies for foreign missions: first, to centralize their government through a Roman congregation (similar to the later Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith); second, to insist that the civil rulers treat the native peoples humanely in order to win them to the faith.
In 1571 Pius sent Borgia to Spain, Portugal, and France to strengthen the league against the Turks. He fell ill on the return journey and died shortly after reaching Rome. A selection of Borgia’s letters was edited in Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, S. Franciscus Borgia, 5 vol. (1894–1911).
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51da3e69fdd6dde90ef1cfa4f7db7b4d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-III | Saint Gregory III | Saint Gregory III
Saint Gregory III, (born, Syria—died November 741; feast day November 28), pope from 731 to 741.
A priest when elected pope by acclamation, he was the last pope to seek approval of his election from the imperial exarch in Ravenna. His pontificate was one of the most critical in papal history. He was immediately confronted with the Iconoclastic Controversy, begun when his predecessor St. Gregory II condemned the Byzantine emperor Leo III’s destruction of religious images. Gregory denounced the Iconoclasts at a Roman council in 731. A comparatively peaceful period followed, during which he encouraged the Christianizing of the German tribes and appointed (732) St. Boniface, organizer of the Frankish church, as metropolitan of Germany. When in 739 the Lombards sacked the exarchate of Ravenna and threatened Rome, Gregory appealed to the Franks for aid. This unprecedented act began a relationship between the Franks and the Holy See that secured the papacy when Frankish power rose.
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4f3fd1a944310b2976e64ed1cd1381c1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-of-Nyssa | Saint Gregory of Nyssa | Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Latin Gregorius Nyssenus, (born c. 335, Caesarea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor [now Kayseri, Turkey]—died c. 394; feast day March 9), philosophical theologian and mystic, leader of the orthodox party in the 4th-century Christian controversies over the doctrine of the Trinity. Primarily a scholar, he wrote many theological, mystical, and monastic works in which he balanced Platonic and Christian traditions.
A younger son of a distinguished family, Gregory was educated in his native province but was more deeply influenced by his philosophical training than by the other two Cappadocian Fathers of the Church, his brother St. Basil of Caesarea and their friend St. Gregory of Nazianzus. He began his adult life as a teacher of rhetoric and may have been married, although several references that suggest this are capable of a different interpretation, and the strictures on marriage in his treatise On Virginity seem to imply the contrary. In the 360s he turned to religious studies and Christian devotion, perhaps even to the monastic life, under Basil’s inspiration and guidance. As part of Basil’s struggle with Bishop Anthimus of Tyana—whose city became the metropolis (civil and therefore ecclesiastical capital) of western Cappadocia in 372—Gregory was consecrated as bishop of Nyssa, a small city in the new province of Cappadocia Secunda, which Basil wished to retain in his ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In 375, however, Gregory was accused of maladministration by the provincial governor as part of the Arianizing campaign of the Roman emperor Valens (an attempt to force the church to accept the views of the heretic Arius, who denied the divinity of Christ). Gregory was deposed in 376 by a synod of bishops and banished, but on Valens’s death in 378 Gregory’s congregation welcomed him back enthusiastically.
Though Basil had considered him unsuited for ecclesiastical diplomacy, after Gregory’s return to his diocese, he was active in the settlement of church affairs in the years that followed. In 379 he attended a council at Antioch and was sent on a special mission to the churches of Arabia (i.e., Transjordan); his visit to Jerusalem on this occasion left him with a dislike for the increasingly fashionable pilgrimages, an opinion he expressed vigorously in one of his letters. In 381 he took part in the General (second ecumenical) Council at Constantinople and was recognized by the emperor Theodosius as one of the leaders of the orthodox communion in Cappadocia, along with Basil’s successor at Caesarea. Gregory declined election to the important bishopric of Sebaste; however, the care of his small diocese left him free to preach at Constantinople on such special occasions as the funerals of Theodosius’s wife and daughter. Under the unlearned Nectarius, the successor of Gregory of Nazianzus at Constantinople, Gregory of Nyssa was the leading orthodox theologian of the church in Asia Minor in the struggle against the Arians.
Gregory was primarily a scholar, whose chief contribution lay in his writings. Besides controversial replies to heretics, particularly the Arians—in which he formulated the doctrine of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) that emerged as a clear and cogent answer to Arian questioning—he completed Basil’s Hexaëmeron (“Six Days”), sermons on the days of the Creation, with The Creation of Man, and he produced a classic outline of orthodox theology in his Great Catechesis (or Address on Religious Instruction). The latter work is especially notable for developing systematically the place of the sacraments in the Christian view of restoration of the image of God in human nature—lost through sin in the fall of Adam. His brief treatise On Not Three Gods relates the Cappadocian Fathers’ theology of three Persons in the Godhead (i.e., the Trinity) to Plato’s teachings of the One and the Many. As a Christian Platonist, Gregory followed the great Alexandrian theologian Origen, though not slavishly. Most notably, he shared Origen’s conviction that humanity’s material nature is a result of the fall and also Origen’s hope for ultimate universal salvation. In imitation of Plato’s Phaedo, Gregory presented his teaching on resurrection in the form of a deathbed conversation with his sister, the abbess Macrina.
Platonic and Christian inspiration combine in Gregory’s ascetic and mystical writings, which have been influential in the devotional traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church and (indirectly) of the Western church. His Life of Macrina blends biography with instruction in the monastic life. On Virginity and other treatises on the ascetic life are crowned by the mystical Life of Moses, which treats the 13th-century-bce journey of the Hebrews from Egypt to Mount Sinai as a pattern of the progress of the soul through the temptations of the world to a vision of God. A notable emphasis of Gregory’s teaching is the principle that the spiritual life is not one of static perfection but of constant progress. His greatest achievement is his remarkably balanced synthesis of Hellenic (Greek) and Christian traditions, in an age when both were represented by vigorous and acute minds.
Gregory did not, however, neglect his practical and pastoral duties, as is attested by his preserved letters and sermons. Many of the latter were written in praise of the saints venerated in Cappadocia or to celebrate the great days of the church year. Others, such as Gregory’s attacks on usury and on the postponement of baptism, deal with ethical problems of the church in his time. His more intimate discourses on the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) combine ethical and devotional interests, as does his commentary on the Song of Solomon. Gregory disliked attending gatherings of bishops but was periodically invited to preach at such occasions. His last public appearance was at a council at Constantinople. Gregory’s ecclesiastical career was less successful than those of Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus, but his work as scholar and writer was creative, and in the 20th century it was rescued from undeserved neglect.
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170f41f69f007707e3d38413f16479b4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-the-Illuminator | St. Gregory the Illuminator | St. Gregory the Illuminator
St. Gregory the Illuminator, (born 240, Vagarshapat [now Ejmiadzin], Armenia—died 332, Armenia; feast day September 30), according to tradition, the 4th-century apostle of Christianity in Armenia.
Semilegendary 5th-century Armenian chronicles describe Gregory as a Parthian prince who fled the Persian invasion and was educated as a Christian in the Greek culture of Caesarea, Cappadocia (modern Kayseri, Turkey). He returned to Armenia in the midst of a Christian persecution pressed by King Tiridates III (who was a zealot for the regional idols) and was imprisoned in a burial pit. After being rescued about the year 300, Gregory reputedly converted the king, and Tiridates then became the first monarch in history to impose Christianity on his people. He did so about 20 years before Constantine I. Neighbouring Cappadocian bishops then installed Gregory as patriarchal bishop of Armenia. He subsequently evangelized parts of the country remaining under Roman control and influenced Christianity in Albania and other regions of the Caucasus mountains.
Gregory initiated an original Armenian ecclesiastical dynasty, wherein the office of metropolitan, or senior bishop, remained in his family down to the 5th century. He consecrated as bishops his two sons, Vhartanes and Aristakes. Having organized the Armenian church along lines of Greek and Syriac biblical texts and liturgical practices, he passed his last years in contemplative solitude, dying in a mountain cave. A number of letters, rules of church discipline (canons), liturgical prayers, and sermons ascribed to Gregory are not completely genuine, since they contain theological terminology of a later period.
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8e4a9c3ec27c74410be6afcaee21116e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Hegesippus | Saint Hegesippus | Saint Hegesippus
Saint Hegesippus, (flourished 2nd century; feast day April 7), Greek Christian historian and champion of orthodoxy who opposed the heresy of Gnosticism (q.v.). His single known work, five books of memoirs, constitutes a prime source on the organizational structure and theological ferment of the primitive Christian church.
Probably of Jewish descent, Hegesippus c. 180 composed his memoirs, containing a mélange of historical, doctrinal, polemical, and catechetical interpolations. In his memoirs he noted the succession of Roman bishops down to Pope Eleutherius (174–189), accenting, however, their doctrine rather than the chronology of succession. Recent scholarship infers Hegesippus’ Hebraic background from the attention he pays in his memoirs to the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem and its history of episcopal leaders. The preservation of segments of his memoirs by the 4th-century historian Eusebius of Caesarea provides the most direct existing witness to the primitive church of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian Christianity as a result of the anti-Jewish pogrom conducted after ad 70 by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Domitian.
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1aeb0782a726bb40058572cc9b5ed744 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Hermenegild | St. Hermenegild | St. Hermenegild
St. Hermenegild, Hermenegild also spelled Ermengild, (died April 13, 585, Tarragona, kingdom of the Visigoths [Spain]; canonized 1585; feast day April 13), Visigothic prince who is celebrated as a saint and martyr.
Hermenegild was the son of Leovigild of Spain and was brought up in the Arian heresy. In 579 he married Ingund, the daughter of Sigebert I of Austrasia and a zealous orthodox Catholic. He was given a separate command at his father’s siege of Byzantine-held Sevilla (Seville), where he was converted through the efforts of his wife and the bishop of Sevilla, St. Leander. Hermenegild immediately rebelled against his heretic father and was initially aided by the Byzantines, though Leovigild succeeded in buying them off. Hermenegild was then captured and eventually beheaded. Most contemporary writers suggested that Hermenegild was executed as a rebel, but Pope Gregory I, in his Dialogues, stated that he was killed for refusing to receive Communion from an Arian bishop. His cult was subsequently authorized for Spain by Pope Sixtus V and for the whole church by Urban VIII.
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c6e9931ca0d8c9dd7496e04ff70f9ee1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Hugh-of-Cluny | Saint Hugh of Cluny | Saint Hugh of Cluny
Saint Hugh of Cluny, French Saint Hugues De Cluny, original name Hugues De Semur, (born 1024, Semur-en-Brionnais, Burgundy [France]—died April 29, 1109, Cluny, France; canonized 1120; feast day April 29), French abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Cluny (1049–1109), under whose direction medieval monasticism reached its apogee and Cluny won recognition as the spiritual centre of Western Christianity. He also helped develop the liturgy of the Latin rite.
Hugh de Semur took monastic vows at the age of 14 and, in 1049, succeeded Odilo (later St. Odilo) as abbot. Under Hugh’s rule, nearly 2,000 monasteries associated with Cluny were founded in Italy, England, and Spain; in 1055 he founded the first Cluniac convent, at Marcigny. While encouraging the development of Cluniac monasticism elsewhere, he also expanded the parent house at Cluny; at his death, there were 300 monks.
Hugh had a personal reputation for wisdom, sanctity, and persuasiveness, evident in his diplomatic missions to Hungary and Germany on behalf of the church. Before being elected abbot, he had served as the abbey’s ambassador to the Holy Roman emperor Henry III. Later, during the reign of the subsequent emperor, Henry IV, Hugh acted as an adviser to Pope Gregory VII in the investiture controversy, a struggle for power in which the emperor attempted to transcend papal authority.
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f73e237bcb15aaf17c17702cdd4a77c4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Innocent-Veniaminov | Saint Innocent Veniaminov | Saint Innocent Veniaminov
Saint Innocent Veniaminov, Russian Innokenty Veniaminov, original name Ivan Yevseyevich Veniaminov, (born Sept. 6 [Aug. 26, old style], 1797, Anginskoye, Irkutsk Province, Russian Empire—died April 12, [March 31, O.S.] 1879, Moscow; canonized Oct. 6, 1977), the most famous Russian Orthodox missionary priest of the 19th century, who later became Metropolitan Innocent of Moscow. He was canonized in the Russian Church.
Veniaminov began his career, from 1824 until 1839, as a parish priest, first in Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, and then in Alaska, which was part of the Russian Empire until 1867. While in Alaska, Veniaminov learned the Aleut language, for which he invented an alphabet and charted a grammar. His book The Way to the Kingdom of Heaven, written in Aleut in 1841, gained wide appeal. After spending 10 years in the Aleutians, he moved on to Novo Arkhangelsk (now Sitka) on Baronov Island and, in 1836, began to baptize the Kolosh Indians.
In 1840, while Veniaminov was in St. Petersburg to recruit support for the Alaska Mission, his wife died; he subsequently entered the novitiate, took the name Innocent, and was ordained bishop of the new Diocese of Kamchatka, which extended from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the Alaska Peninsula, including the Kuril and the Aleutian islands and the region of Yakutsk. For 28 years he travelled this region, learning the local languages, converting the inhabitants to Orthodoxy, and ultimately establishing four separate dioceses. He was rewarded with election to the position of metropolitan of Moscow in 1868, and in this role he established the Orthodox Missionary Society, which continued his work of conversion until the Russian Revolution.
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4571d229a5f942e2de54d05c474110fe | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Isaac-the-Great | St. Isaac the Great | St. Isaac the Great
St. Isaac the Great, Isaac the Armenian, Sahak the Armenian, or Isaac the Parthian, Armenian Sahak, (born c. 345—died probably September 7, 439, Ashtishat, Armenia; Western feast day September 9; Eastern feast day November 20 (or 25); Armenian feast day February 10 (or two weeks before Lent). ), celebrated catholicos, or spiritual head, of the Armenian Apostolic Church, principal advocate of Armenian cultural and ecclesiastical independence and collaborator in the first translation of the Bible and varied Christian literature into Armenian.
Descended from a family of Armenian patriarchs, Isaac was educated in the Hellenistic culture of Asia Minor and at Constantinople. After the death of his wife, he became a monk and c. 388, with royal support, was named catholicos of Armenia. He furthered Armenian monasticism and converted his residence into a monastery, integrating his patriarchal administration with the ascetical life of the monks. A reformer, Isaac tightened clerical discipline and enforced celibacy on Armenian bishops. He also established schools and churches and gained Constantinople’s recognition of Armenian patriarchal rights, thus creating a distinctive and autonomous Armenian form of Christianity free from direct Greek Orthodox control. With the help of his auxiliary bishop, the monk Mesrop Mashtots, later a saint, Isaac began c. 391 the development of a Greek-inspired Armenian alphabet and literature. The two then directed a group of scholars in translating the Greek and Syriac versions of the Bible into Armenian, completing it c. 435. This linguistic achievement and the formation of an Armenian liturgy and ritual preserved Armenian unity during its partition under Greek and Persian rule.
Although he won toleration for the Armenian Church by the Persian overlords, Isaac was forced to resign his office c. 428 because of intrigues among the Armenian princes. He resumed the church leadership in 432 in response to popular clamour. A semi-legendary 8th-century history of Armenia Major credits Isaac with writing liturgical texts and music, biblical commentaries on the Old Testament, and a series of letters to the Byzantine emperor, to Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, and to other Eastern prelates on the Christological controversy. At the national Armenian synod of Ashtishat (435), Isaac promoted the Orthodox doctrine of Christ’s personal divinity and denounced the emphasis on his humanity as expressed by Theodore of Mopsuestia.
Isaac’s letters have been published in the French translation (1841) of the 8th-century history of Armenia Major. Frederick C. Conybeare produced an English version (1898) of partially authentic church legislation attributed to Isaac.
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c11ae9778f6a30f68db4b4244f93e1e5 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-La-Salle | Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle | Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle
Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, (born April 30, 1651, Reims, France—died April 7, 1719, Rouen; canonized 1900; feast day April 7), French educator and founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (sometimes called the de La Salle Brothers), the first Roman Catholic congregation of male nonclerics devoted solely to schools, learning, and teaching.
Of noble birth, La Salle was ordained priest in 1678 and devoted himself to education of the poor. He helped to establish charity schools in Reims and subsequently formed his teachers into a religious order (1680). He also set up boarding schools for middle-class boys, reformatories, and—for the first time—training colleges for secular teachers. In 1725 Pope Benedict XIII raised La Salle’s congregation to the status of a papal institute. Among his writings are Les Devoirs d’un chrétien (1703; “The Duties of a Christian”), two series of Méditations (1730–31), and La Conduite des écoles chrétiennes (1720; “The Conduct of Christian Schools”). He was declared patron saint of all schoolteachers by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
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047d4d6ba3bd259e91c5327feb0d7edb | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Jean-Baptiste-Marie-Vianney | St. John Vianney | St. John Vianney
St. John Vianney, in full Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, also called Curé d’Ars, (born May 8, 1786, Dardilly, France—died August 4, 1859, Ars; canonized May 31, 1925; feast day August 4 [formerly August 9]), French priest who was renowned as a confessor and for his supernatural powers. He is the patron saint of parish priests.
Because of the French Revolution, Vianney received little education. Given the anticlerical sentiment of the Hébertists during the Reign of Terror, he was forced to make his first communion and confession secretly and was impressed by the heroism of the nuns and priests who risked their lives for their faith. He felt called to pursue the priesthood but struggled with Latin and needed private tutoring to supplement his lack of formal education. His studies were interrupted when he was drafted into Napoleon’s armies in 1809. Whether deliberately or by serendipity, he was separated from his draft group and ended up in a rural village with a number of army deserters, where he was forced to hide until the decree of amnesty for all deserters in 1810. He was ordained in 1815 and was made assistant priest at Écully, France.
In 1818 he became priest of the small village of Ars, which he made a model parish and from which reports of his holiness and his supernatural powers soon spread. He was known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary and to St. Philomena and was dedicated to the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) for his parishioners. From 1824 he suffered attacks that he believed were caused by the Devil, who allegedly on one occasion set fire to Vianney’s bed. By 1827 Ars had become a pilgrimage site, and, every year from 1845 until Vianney’s death, about 20,000 persons visited Ars to see Vianney and especially to make their confession to him. The holy curé spent as many as 12 or 15 hours daily in his confessional. He was canonized by Pope Pius XI.
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4e44ae7f78adf7b8d39f6974f7e3adc4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Job | Saint Job | Saint Job
Saint Job, Russian Svyatoy Iov, (died June 19 [June 29, New Style], 1607, Staritsa, Russia; canonized Oct. 9, 1989), first Russian Orthodox patriarch of Moscow (1589–1605).
Until Job’s election, the head of the Russian church had held the title metropolitan of Moscow and was, at least nominally, subordinate to the patriarch of Constantinople. Moscow, however, was eager to have its own patriarch, and it took advantage of the pecuniary needs of the patriarchs of Antioch and Constantinople to suggest that, in exchange for giving them financial support, Moscow be given a patriarch. At that time, the Orthodox church had only four patriarchs—those of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem—instead of the traditional five. Moscow hoped to fill the role of primary patriarch, which, in the Orthodox view, had belonged to Rome before the East-West Schism of 1054.
Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople ultimately agreed to Moscow’s suggestion and in 1589 elevated Job, who was then metropolitan of Moscow, to the position of patriarch of all Russia. In 1593 the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem confirmed Job’s appointment but placed Moscow fifth in the hierarchy of patriarchates.
Job’s elevation had both religious and political ramifications. Because Job no longer had to guard Moscow’s primacy within Russia, he was able to raise the bishops of Novgorod and Rostov to the position of metropolitan. On the other hand, when Tsar Fyodor died in 1598, the Russian people turned to Patriarch Job to secure a new tsar, and he chose Boris Godunov, whose reign marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles in Russia. In 1605 Job was removed from his office by boyars who opposed the Godunovs. He was sent to Uspensky Monastery in Staritsa, where he died two years later.
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e3225a9ff91367e0eba95ba8eb05bfb8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Bonagiunta | Saint John Bonagiunta | Saint John Bonagiunta
Bonfilius, Alexis Falconieri, John Bonagiunta, Benedict dell’Antella, Bartholomew Amidei, Gerard Sostegni, and Ricoverus Uguccione. Formally Ordo Fratrum Servorum Sanctae Mariae (“Order of Friar Servants of St. Mary”), the order is a Roman Catholic congregation of mendicant friars dedicated to apostolic work.
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38b970e2f75e9994a1cb80bdcaccad51 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Cassian | St. John Cassian | St. John Cassian
St. John Cassian, Latin Johannes Cassianus, also called Johannes Eremita or Johannes Massiliensis, (born 360, the Dobruja, Scythia—died 435, Marseille; Eastern feast day February 29 (observed on February 28 during non-leap years); Western feast day July 23), ascetic, monk, theologian, and founder and first abbot of the famous abbey of Saint-Victor at Marseille. His writings, which have influenced all Western monasticism, themselves reflect much of the teaching of the hermits of Egypt, the Desert Fathers. Cassian’s theology stemmed from, and was subordinate to, his concept of monasticism. He became a leading exponent of, in its early phase, Semi-Pelagianism, a heresy that flourished in southern France during the 5th century.
Probably of Roman birth, Cassian became a monk at Bethlehem and later visited and was trained by the hermits and monks of Egypt. About 399 he went to Constantinople, where he was ordained a deacon by the patriarch, St. John Chrysostom. A few years later, after Chrysostom had been illegally deposed, Cassian went to Rome to plead Chrysostom’s cause with the pope and while there was ordained a priest (405). Nothing is then known of his life until 415, when he founded a nunnery at Marseille and also the abbey of Saint-Victor, of which he remained abbot until his death.
Cassian’s most influential work is his Institutes of the Monastic Life (420–429); this and his Collations of the Fathers (or Conferences of the Egyptian Monks), written as dialogues of the Desert Fathers, were influential in the further development of Western monasticism. His theological dissertation On the Incarnation of the Lord, written against the heretic Nestorius at the request of Pope Leo I, is an inferior work.
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43b8f71349b6b6dc5d16374c5c1f907a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Henry-Newman/Apologia-pro-Vita-Sua | Apologia pro Vita Sua | Apologia pro Vita Sua
From the sense of frustration engendered by these experiences Newman was delivered in 1864 by an unwarranted attack from Charles Kingsley upon his moral teaching. Kingsley in effect challenged him to justify the honesty of his life as an Anglican. And, though he treated Kingsley more severely than some thought justified, the resulting history of his religious opinions, Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864; “A Defense of His Life”), was read and approved far beyond the limits of the Roman Catholic Church, and, by its fairness, candour, interest, and the beauty of some passages, it recaptured the almost national status that he had once held.
Though the Apologia was not liked by Manning and those who thought as he did because it seemed to show the quasi-liberal spirit that they feared, it assured Newman’s stature in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1870 he expressed opposition to a definition of papal infallibility, though himself a believer in the doctrine. In the same year, he published his most important book of theology since 1845, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (commonly known as The Grammar of Assent), which contained a further consideration of the nature of faith and an attempt to show how faith can possess certainty when it rises out of evidence that can never be more than probable. In 1879 Pope Leo XIII made him cardinal deacon of St. George in Velabro. Newman died at Birmingham in 1890 and was buried (with his closest friend, Ambrose St. John) at Rednal, the rest house of the Oratory. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on September 19, 2010, and canonized by Pope Francis on October 13, 2019.
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94e1ac2bed107652676aabbc620be62b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-of-Damascus | St. John of Damascus | St. John of Damascus
St. John of Damascus, also called Saint John Damascene, Latin Johannes Damascenus, (born c. 675, Damascus—died December 4, 749, near Jerusalem; Eastern and Western feast day December 4), Eastern monk and theological doctor of the Greek and Latin churches whose treatises on the veneration of sacred images placed him in the forefront of the 8th-century Iconoclastic Controversy and whose theological synthesis made him a preeminent intermediary between Greek and medieval Latin culture.
John of Damascus succeeded his father as one of the Muslim caliph’s tax officials, and while still a government minister he wrote three Discourses on Sacred Images, c. 730, defending their veneration against the Byzantine emperor Leo III and the Iconoclasts. The Iconoclasts obtained a condemnation of John at the Council of Hieria in 754 that was reversed at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.
Soon after 730, John became a monk at Mar Saba, near Jerusalem, and there passed the rest of his life studying, writing, and preaching, acquiring the name “the Golden Orator” (Greek: Chrysorrhoas, literally “the Golden Stream”). Among his approximately 150 written works the most significant is Pēgē gnōseōs (“The Source of Knowledge”), a synthesis of Christian philosophy and doctrine that was influential in directing the course of medieval Latin thought and that became the principal textbook of Greek Orthodox theology. Revised circa 743, it is composed of three parts: the philosophical (“Dialectica”), drawing largely from the late 3rd-century Neoplatonist Porphyry’s Isagoge, an introduction to the logic of Aristotle; the historical, transcribing sections from the 4th-century Greek churchman Epiphanius’s work Panarion, on heresies; and the theological and most widely known segment, the “Exposition [Ekthesis] of the Orthodox Faith.” Essentially a résumé of the 4th-century Cappadocian Fathers, Saints Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa, and expressed in Aristotelian vocabulary, it manifests some distinctive originality in John’s choice of texts and annotations reflecting Antiochene analytical theology. Through its translation into Oriental languages and Latin, the “Exposition” served both Eastern and Western thinkers not only as a source of logical and theological concepts but also, by its systematic style, as a model for subsequent theological syntheses composed by medieval Scholastics. The “Exposition” speculates on the nature and existence of God, providing points of contention for later theologians.
Elsewhere the “Exposition” analyzes the nature of free choice and the will. The author was sensitive to this question in light of Christian doctrine on personal responsibility for salvation. He describes the human will as a rational appetite or inclination to the good, functioning with regard to ends or goals rather than with means, which relate more to the intellect. In God there is will but no deliberation.
A counterpart to The Source of Knowledge is John’s anthology of moral exhortations, the Sacred Parallels, culled from biblical texts and from writings of the Church Fathers. Among his literary works are several intricately structured kanōns, or hymns for the Greek liturgy, although his reputation in liturgical poetry rests largely on his revision of the Eastern church’s hymnal, the Octoēchos.
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c024b36f94a88014931a2aa658ceb619 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-of-Nepomuk | St. John of Nepomuk | St. John of Nepomuk
St. John of Nepomuk, also called John of Pomuk or John Nepomucen, Czech Svatý Jan Nepomucký, (born c. 1345, Nepomuk, Bohemia [now in Czech Republic]—died March 20, 1393, Prague; canonized 1729; feast day May 16), one of the patron saints of the Czechs who was murdered during the bitter conflict of church and state that plagued Bohemia in the latter 14th century.
In 1383 John began studies at Padua, Italy, where he became a doctor of canon law and subsequently received several church offices. In 1390 he was made vicar general for the archbishop of Prague. In 1393 the archbishop, with John’s support, excommunicated one of the favourites of King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia and thwarted the king’s ambition to make a new bishopric out of the province of Prague. John was arrested as the archbishop’s chief agent. Wenceslas personally tortured him with fire, after which he reconsidered and released him on an oath of secrecy regarding his treatment. John, however, was dying, and, to conceal the evidence, Wenceslas had him gagged, shoved into a goatskin, and cast into the Vltava River. Bohemian Catholics later regarded him as a martyr.
The Austrian chronicler Thomas Ebendorfferus’s account that John was killed for refusing to reveal to the king the confessions of his wife, Queen Sophia, was officially declared false in 1961.
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f95e34f147839a591029bd5d3662ebf0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Joseph-of-Arimathea | St. Joseph of Arimathea | St. Joseph of Arimathea
St. Joseph of Arimathea, (flourished c. 30 ce; Western feast day March 17, Eastern feast day July 31), according to all four Gospels, a secret disciple of Jesus, whose body he buried in his own tomb. In designating him a “member of the council,” Mark 15:43 and Luke 23:50 suggest his membership in the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Virtuous and rich, he held a high office, and he boldly gained Pontius Pilate’s permission to obtain Jesus’ body. Mark 15:43 notes his motive for this action as “waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.” Joseph wished to prevent the body from hanging on the cross overnight and to secure for it an honourable burial, thereby offending Jewish law, which allowed only a disgraceful burial to the executed.
Joseph is accorded a long history in later literature. In the apocryphal Gospel of Peter (2nd century), he is a friend of Jesus and of Pilate. In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (or Acts of Pilate; 4th/5th century), Jews imprison Joseph after Jesus’ burial, but he is released by the risen Lord, thus becoming the first witness of the Resurrection. In Robert de Boron’s verse romance Joseph d’Arimathie (c. 1200), he is entrusted with the Holy Grail (cup) of the Last Supper. A mid-13th-century interpolation relates that Joseph went to Glastonbury (in Somerset, England), of which he is patron saint, as head of 12 missionaries dispatched there by St. Philip the Apostle. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (15th century), when Galahad receives the vision of the Grail, he sees Joseph standing at the altar dressed as a bishop.
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655f8190f6e83c16b8455a3800b99b4b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Laurentius-of-Canterbury | Saint Laurentius of Canterbury | Saint Laurentius of Canterbury
Saint Laurentius of Canterbury, also called Lawrence, or Laurence, (died Feb. 2, 619, Canterbury, Kent, Eng.; feast day February 3), second archbishop of Canterbury, missionary who played a large part in establishing the Anglo-Saxon church.
In 597 Pope Gregory I the Great assigned Laurentius, who was then probably a Benedictine friar, to the first Anglo-Saxon mission aimed at converting England to Roman Catholicism. The mission was led by St. Augustine, later first archbishop of Canterbury. Laurentius reported to Rome on the mission’s progress and returned with more missionaries in 601. He succeeded Augustine as archbishop about 604.
Like Augustine, Laurentius endured persecution and hostilities by the Britons while fruitlessly trying to convince the Celtic Christians to adopt Roman practices. Anti-Christian attitudes increased upon the death (616) of King Aethelberht I of Kent and the succession of his son, Edbald.
Gregory’s plan was to have two archbishoprics (London and York); Laurentius attempted to establish his see at London but was ejected by antagonists and retired to Canterbury, where the provincial see remained. About 617 opposition encouraged by Edbald caused Laurentius to consider departing for France, but a dream of St. Peter reminded him of his mission. Before he died he succeeded in converting Edbald.
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4977aa2382c0f948751f48118ba97f2a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Lawrence | Saint Lawrence | Saint Lawrence
Saint Lawrence, Lawrence also spelled Laurence, (died 258, Rome [Italy]; feast day August 10), one of the most venerated Roman martyrs, celebrated for his Christian valour. He is the patron saint of the poor and of cooks.
Lawrence was among the seven deacons of the Roman church serving Pope Sixtus II, whose martyrdom preceded Lawrence’s by a few days: they were executed during the persecution under the Roman emperor Valerian. It is said that Lawrence gave the church’s treasures to the poor and the sick before his arrest. Although Lawrence was probably beheaded, St. Ambrose of Milan and the Latin poet Prudentius, among others, recorded that he was roasted to death on a gridiron, remarking to his torturers at one point, “I am cooked on that side; turn me over, and eat.” Many conversions to Christianity throughout Rome reportedly followed Lawrence’s death, including those of several senators witnessing his execution. The Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura (St. Lawrence Outside the Walls), Rome, was built over his burial place. He is named in the canon of the Roman mass.
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5ae6b303309af7b9ec2a1f0311bf6eb7 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Leander | Saint Leander | Saint Leander
Leander as archbishop of Sevilla (Seville) about 600, during a time when the Spanish church witnessed numerous councils, one of the greatest being the fourth Council of Toledo (633). Isidore headed this council, which, among other politico-religious matters, decreed union between church and state, toleration…
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ad3a2d49fe24396a932dda779daafda9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Leo-IV | Saint Leo IV | Saint Leo IV
Saint Leo IV, (born, Rome—died July 17, 855, Rome; feast day July 17), pope from 847 to 855.
A Benedictine monk, Leo served in the Curia under Pope Gregory IV and was later made cardinal priest by Pope Sergius II, whom he was elected to succeed. Leo rebuilt Rome after it had been sacked by the Saracens (Arab enemies) in 846 and fortified the city to protect it against future attacks. In 849 he arranged an alliance among several Greek cities in Italy, and their combined forces defeated an invading Saracen fleet off Ostia, Italy. In 854 Leo fortified Civitavecchia, Italy, a popular Saracen target. Thereafter, the town was named Leopoli in his honour.
At a Roman synod in April 850, he crowned as co-emperor the Frankish emperor Lothar I’s son Louis II. In church affairs, Leo took a firm hand against abuses by important ecclesiastics. He censured the powerful archbishop Hincmar of Reims for excommunicating an imperial vassal without papal approval, and he excommunicated Cardinal Anastasius of San Marcello (later the antipope Anastasius Bibliothecarius), in 853, to enforce ecclesiastical obedience to Rome.
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8239b85d7347bea48369af2b7a5644e3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Leodegar | Saint Leodegar | Saint Leodegar
Leodegar (or Léger), bishop of Autun, of complicity in Childeric’s murder; the bishop’s tongue and lips were cut off before he was finally executed.
…Burgundy was led by Bishop Leodegar, who was assassinated about 679 (he was later canonized). Austrasia was governed by the Pippinid mayors of the palace, who were given the office as a reward for their founder’s support of Chlotar in the overthrow of Brunhild; Pippin I of Landen was succeeded…
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6896fc2e5a937a6998adecb42bd63c58 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Louis-Marie-Grignion-de-Montfort | Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort | Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort
Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, (born Jan. 31, 1673, Montfort-sur-Meu, Fr.—died April 28, 1716, St. Laurent-sur-Sèvre; canonized 1947; feast day April 28), French priest who promoted the devotion to the Virgin Mary and who founded the religious congregations of the Daughters of Wisdom and the Company of Mary (Montfort Fathers).
Ordained priest in 1700 at Paris, Montfort went to the French town of Nantes as a rural preacher and then to Poitiers, where he reorganized a hospital for the poor and began the Daughters of Wisdom, a congregation dedicated to the care of needy children and the sick. In 1705 he founded the Montfort Fathers to continue his mission and retreat work and to spread devotion to Mary. Named apostolic missionary for France (1706) by Pope Clement XI, he spent the rest of his life preaching parish missions in western France.
Montfort is well known for his True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, which teaches that devotion to Mary is the best means of attaining union with Christ. The discovery in 1842 of True Devotion gave the Montfort Fathers considerable impetus: in 1853 they were raised to the status of a pontifical congregation, and Montfort’s beatification in 1888 reinforced the congregation’s international expansion.
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c70003199d35df386ba3de9649dd413a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Maksymilian-Maria-Kolbe | St. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe | St. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe
St. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, also spelled Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, original name Rajmund Kolbe, (born January 8, 1894, Zduńska Wola, near Lodz, Russian Empire [now in Poland]—died August 14, 1941, Auschwitz [now Oświęcim]; feast day August 14), ; canonized October 10, 1982), Franciscan priest and religious founder martyred by the Nazis for aiding Jewish refugees during World War II.
In 1906 young Kolbe had a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she offered him a white crown and a red crown and asked which he would accept. Understanding the white to represent a life of purity and the red to represent martyrdom, he said he would accept them both. The vision deeply affected him, and the following year he and his elder brother joined the Franciscan Conventuals. In 1912 he went to Rome, where he studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1917 he founded the sodality (i.e., devotional association) of the Militia of Mary Immaculate, thus making a significant contribution to the international Marian movement. In 1918 he was ordained a priest. Returning to Poland, he established the popular Roman Catholic periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej (“The Knight of Mary Immaculate”) and in 1927 founded the City of Mary Immaculate (Niepokalanów), a religious centre, that eventually attracted some 700 friars and workers. A fervent devotee of the Virgin Mary, he later founded sister institutions in Japan and India.
Upon his return to Poland, Kolbe became superior of the City of Mary Immaculate and director of Poland’s chief Catholic publishing complex. In 1938 the centre started its own radio station. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 for his anti-Nazism but was later released. He and the remaining brothers used the centre to shelter an estimated 2,000–3,000 Polish refugees, the majority of whom were Jewish, and continued to publish anti-Nazi publications. He was again arrested in February 1941 on charges of aiding Jews and the Polish underground. He was imprisoned at Warsaw and then shipped to Auschwitz. There he continued his priestly ministry, including hearing confessions and holding mass with smuggled bread, for which he was subjected to beatings by the guards. Following a prisoner’s escape, 10 men were randomly selected to die as punishment, and Kolbe volunteered his life in the place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, who was married with young children. Kolbe and the other nine prisoners were starved for weeks until he and the few others who were still alive were finally injected with carbolic acid and cremated.
On October 17, 1971, Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI, the first Nazi victim to be proclaimed blessed by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1982 Pope John Paul II canonized him, proclaiming also that he was to be venerated as a martyr. Gajowniczek survived Auschwitz and attended both the beatification and canonization ceremonies.
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b3ab7826e9af6e15e0d8e84262c876b2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Marcellinus | St. Marcellinus | St. Marcellinus
St. Marcellinus, (born, Rome?—died October 304, Rome; feast day June 2), pope probably from 291/296 to 304, although the dates of his reign, as well as those of his predecessors Eutychianus and Gaius, are uncertain. His pontificate saw a long tranquil period terminated by a renewed and bloody persecution of Christians, the last of its kind, by the Roman emperor Diocletian. It is believed that Marcellinus became an apostate during the persecution, offering incense to the pagan gods of Rome. St. Augustine of Hippo, however, discredits the charge. Marcellinus supposedly repented and was martyred, but his martyrdom is unproved.
A long period of crisis in the government of the church followed Marcellinus’s death. Because of his alleged apostasy, peace was disturbed and was not restored until the election of St. Miltiades in July 311. Marcellinus was succeeded by St. Marcellus I after an interval of three or four years.
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7cbf1e32d7fb4a8668632f9a5c5d1a42 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Margaret-Mary-Alacoque | Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque | Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
…1682, Paray-le-Monial), Jesuit who assisted St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in establishing the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
…to a French Visitandine nun, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, in the late 17th century. Assisted by Claude de la Colombière, her confessor, she called for the establishment of a feast in honour of the Sacred Heart and for prayers of reparation for sins, especially for those directed against the Eucharist.…
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c5a0c2c2c648ea9c7e9fa10f7a3a0cb4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Martin-of-Tours | St. Martin of Tours | St. Martin of Tours
St. Martin of Tours, (born 316, Sabaria, Pannonia [now Szombathely, Hungary]—died November 8, 397, Candes, Gaul [France]; Western feast day, November 11; Eastern feast day November 12), patron saint of France, father of monasticism in Gaul, and the first great leader of Western monasticism.
Of pagan parentage, Martin chose Christianity at age 10. As a youth, he was forced into the Roman army, but later—according to his disciple and biographer Sulpicius Severus—he petitioned the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate to be released from the army because “I am Christ’s soldier: I am not allowed to fight.” When charged with cowardice, he is said to have offered to stand in front of the battle line armed only with the sign of the cross. He was imprisoned but was soon discharged.
Legend holds that while he was still in the military and a catechumen of the faith, Martin cut his cloak in half to share it with a beggar. That night, he dreamed that Jesus himself was clothed with the torn cloak. When he awoke, the garment was restored. Moved by this vision and apparent miracle, Martin immediately finished his religious instruction and was baptized at age 18.
On leaving the Roman army, Martin settled at Poitiers, under the guidance of Bishop Hilary. He became a missionary in the provinces of Pannonia and Illyricum (now in the Balkan Peninsula), where he opposed Arianism, a heresy that denied the divinity of Christ. Forced out of Illyricum by the Arians, Martin went to Italy, first to Milan and then to the island of Gallinaria, off Albenga. In 360 he rejoined Hilary at Poitiers. Martin then founded a community of hermits at Ligugé, the first monastery in Gaul. In 371 he was made bishop of Tours, and outside that city he founded another monastery, Marmoutier, to which he withdrew whenever possible.
As bishop, Martin made Marmoutier a great monastic complex to which European ascetics were attracted and from which apostles spread Christianity throughout Gaul. He himself was an active missionary in Touraine and in the country districts where Christianity was as yet barely known. In 384/385 he took part in a conflict at the imperial court in Trier, France, to which the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus had summoned Bishop Priscillian of Ávila, Spain, and his followers. Although Martin opposed Priscillianism, a heretical doctrine renouncing all pleasures, he protested to Maximus against the killing of heretics and against civil interference in ecclesiastical matters. Priscillian was nevertheless executed, and Martin’s continued involvement with the case caused him to fall into disfavour with the Spanish bishops. During his lifetime, Martin acquired a reputation as a miracle worker, and he was one of the first nonmartyrs to be publicly venerated as a saint.
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688114929d3bb77903f47a6cc3c1aaaa | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Mary-MacKillop | St. Mary MacKillop | St. Mary MacKillop
St. Mary MacKillop, in full Saint Mary Helen MacKillop, also called Saint Mary of the Cross, (born January 15, 1842, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia—died August 8, 1909, North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; canonized October 17, 2010; feast day August 8), religious figure, educator, and social reformer who was the first Australian beatified by the Roman Catholic Church and the first Australian to be recognized as one of its saints. She is informally seen as a patron saint of sexual abuse victims for her role in exposing a pedophile priest.
MacKillop was born in Australia to poor Scottish immigrants. Her father, a former seminarian whose ill health had caused him to abandon study for the priesthood, stressed the importance of education and homeschooled his eight children. When she was 14, MacKillop began working, and she was often her family’s main source of support. In 1860 she moved to the small rural town of Penola to serve as governess for the children of her aunt and uncle. There MacKillop provided her cousins with a basic education and soon extended this to the poor children of the town. A young priest, Father Julian Tenison Woods, encouraged her to continue this work, assuring her that educating the poor would be an ideal way to serve God.
In 1866 MacKillop and Woods founded Australia’s first order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, and also established St. Joseph’s School in a converted stable in Penola, providing a free education to children from the area. In 1867 MacKillop took vows and became the first mother superior of the sisters. The following year the sisters opened schools in other Australian cities, as well as an orphanage and a refuge for women released from prison.
MacKillop intended that the order be self-governed and devoted to teaching and charity. She and Woods, who composed the rule for the order, insisted that the sisters would accept a life of total poverty, trusting in Divine Providence. Further, her school at Penola and the other schools that her order founded provided secular as well as religious education, regardless of the religious affiliation of the students, and accepted no money from the government, remaining open to all and accepting only what tuition parents could afford, at a time when the government still provided funding to religious schools. Some Australian priests and bishops were openly hostile both to the degree of autonomy that the Josephites enjoyed and to MacKillop’s rejection of federal funding. She and the sisters were said to have garnered more ire when MacKillop reported accounts of alleged sexual abuse by an Irish priest in southern Australia; the priest was then returned to Ireland. In 1871, perhaps intentionally misinformed by his advisers, Bishop Laurence Sheil of Adelaide excommunicated MacKillop for insubordination. The next year, however, on his deathbed, Sheil acknowledged that he might have been misled, and he reinstated MacKillop.
The remainder of MacKillop’s career was marked by clashes with priests and bishops of the Australian church. After an 1873 meeting with Pope Pius IX, she won papal approval for the Josephite rule, with modifications that relaxed the degree of poverty imposed upon the sisters. MacKillop expanded the order’s educational and charitable endeavours and attracted new sisters. In 1875 she was appointed superior general of the order. Despite her elevation, she continued to meet with hostility from a number of priests and bishops, and the sisters’ work was circumscribed in certain cities. In 1885 she was removed as superior general, though she was reinstated in 1899 and remained at the head of the order until her death.
In June 1995 MacKillop was beatified by Pope John Paul II. In February 2010, after evaluating the testimony of an Australian woman who claimed that her terminal cancer had disappeared after she called upon MacKillop in prayer, Pope Benedict XVI recognized MacKillop as a saint. She was canonized that October.
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66b9418b348e916a1a8a5c05d1194224 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Matthew | St. Matthew | St. Matthew
St. Matthew, also called St. Matthew the Evangelist, St. Matthew the Apostle, or Levi, (flourished 1st century ce, Palestine; Western feast day September 21, Eastern feast day November 16), one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and the traditional author of the first Synoptic Gospel (the Gospel According to Matthew).
According to Matthew 9:9 and Mark 2:14, Matthew was sitting by the customs house in Capernaum (near modern Almagor, Israel, on the Sea of Galilee) when Jesus called him into his company. Assuming that the identification of Matthew with Levi is correct, Matthew (probably meaning “Yahweh’s Gift”) would appear to be the Christian name of Levi (called by Mark “Levi the son of Alphaeus”), who had been employed as a tax collector in the service of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. Because Levi’s occupation was one that earned distrust and contempt everywhere, the scribes of the Pharisees criticized Jesus on seeing him eat with tax collectors and sinners, whereupon Jesus answered, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:15–17). According to Luke 5:29, the aforementioned dinner was given by Levi in his house after his call.
Other than naming Matthew in the list of Apostles, usually pairing him with St. Thomas, the New Testament offers scant and uncertain information about him. Outside the New Testament, a statement of importance about him is the passage from the Apostolic Father Papias of Hierapolis preserved by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea: “So then Matthew composed the Oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he could.” The Gospel According to Matthew was certainly written for a Jewish-Christian church in a strongly Jewish environment, but that this Matthew is definitely the Synoptic author is seriously doubted. Tradition notes his ministry in Judaea, after which he supposedly missioned to the East, suggesting Ethiopia and Persia. Legend differs as to the scene of his missions and as to whether he died a natural death or a martyr’s. Matthew’s relics were reputedly discovered in Salerno (Italy) in 1080. His symbol is an angel, and he is a patron saint of tax collectors and accountants.
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792cbd0448eaa5480cbec283f8ad5936 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Maximus-the-Confessor | St. Maximus the Confessor | St. Maximus the Confessor
St. Maximus the Confessor, (born c. 580, Constantinople [now Istanbul, Turkey]—died August 13, 662, Lazica [now Tsageri, Georgia]; Eastern feast day January 21; Western feast day August 13), the most important Byzantine theologian of the 7th century whose commentaries on the early 6th-century Christian Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and on the Greek Church Fathers considerably influenced the theology and mysticism of the Middle Ages.
A court secretary of the Eastern Roman emperor Heraclius I, Maximus became a monk c. 613 at a monastery near Chrysopolis in Bithynia. Fleeing to North Africa because of the Persian invasion of 626, he took part at Carthage (near modern Tunis) in the Monothelite controversy over the doctrine that Christ, while having two distinct natures, divine and human, in his one Person (a doctrine firmly established) nonetheless had only one will and one operation. Arguing for a dual-will faculty in Christ, Maximus was called to Rome, where he supported the condemnation of Monothelitism by a regional church council under Pope Martin I in 649. Maximus and Martin were arrested by the emperor Constans II in an intricate theological-political tactic, and, after imprisonment from 653 to 655, Maximus was later tortured and exiled; he died in the wilderness near the Black Sea.
Throughout his approximately 90 major works Maximus developed a Christocentric theology and mysticism. His Opuscula theologica et polemica (“Short Theological and Polemical Treatises”), Ambigua (“Ambiguities” in the works of St. Gregory of Nazianzus), and Scholia (on Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite),express Maximus’s teaching on the transcendental, impredicable nature of the divinity, his intrinsic Trinitarian existence, and his definitive communication in Christ. In his 400 Capita de caritate (“Four Hundred Chapters on Charity”), Maximus counselled a Christian humanism, integrating asceticism with ordinary life and active charity.
Maximus’s attempt to achieve balance in spiritual theory and practice was not always furthered by later theologians; he thus remains an independent and original thinker in the history of Christian speculation.
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3a722091e0ab07f539aaa7f51f74346a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Miltiades | St. Miltiades | St. Miltiades
St. Miltiades, also spelled Melchiades, (born, Africa?—died January 10, 314, Rome [Italy]; feast day December 10), pope from 311 to 314.
Miltiades became the first pope after the edicts of toleration by the Roman emperors Galerius (ending the persecution of Christians), Maxentius (restoring church property to Miltiades), and Constantine the Great (favouring Christianity). He also received a palace (the Lateran) from Constantine that served as the papal residence. Concurrently, however, dissension within the church was caused by the Donatists, North African schismatics who contested the election of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage. At the Lateran Council of 313, Miltiades supported Caecilian and condemned the Donatists, who refused to submit. Constantine then ordered the Council of Arles (Arelate), the first representative meeting of Christian bishops in the Western Roman Empire, but Miltiades died before the council convened. Miltiades is considered a martyr because of earlier sufferings under the Roman emperor Maximian.
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6c1156f6743a88d8820fafd99bf84d12 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Nicodemus-the-Hagiorite | Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite | Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite
Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite, also called Saint Nicodemus Of The Holy Mountain, (born 1748, Naxos Island, Ottoman Empire [now in Greece]—died July 14, 1809, Mount Athos; canonized May 31, 1955), Greek Orthodox monk and author of ascetic prayer literature. He was influential in reviving the practice of Hesychasm, a Byzantine method of contemplative prayer.
Forced to flee Turkish persecution in the midst of his studies at Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey), Nicodemus entered a monastery on Mount Athos. He was inspired to theological scholarship by a contemporary, Macarius of Corinth, whose collection of old Eastern prayer texts Nicodemus edited and published as Philokalia in 1782. After this book had occasioned a renewed interest in Hesychasm throughout the Orthodox churches, Nicodemus edited Macarius’ essays on liturgical prayer, emphasizing the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper. This work was at first criticized for erroneous doctrine, but its orthodoxy was vindicated by the Synod of Constantinople in 1819.
Nicodemus’ outstanding work, the Pedalion, or Rudder of the Ship of Knowledge, is a commentary on Greek church law. Its bias against the Latin church, although partly attributable to interpolations by another editor, reflects the author’s negative feelings toward the institutions of Western Christianity. Nicodemus did not hesitate, however, to use the treatises of Latin theologians on asceticism and contemplative prayer. His Enchiridion of Counsels (1801), a handbook on the religious life, continues to guide modern Greek spirituality. He was proclaimed a saint by the Greek Orthodox church in 1955.
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2123b0c546617c349c2e998177999b8a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Nino | Saint Nino | Saint Nino
Nino, early in the 4th century. Thereafter, Georgia remained in the ecclesiastical sphere of Antioch and also under the influence of neighbouring Armenia. Its autocephaly was probably granted by the Eastern Roman emperor Zeno (474–491) with the consent of the patriarch of Antioch, Peter the…
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cbbf9e8bc99c318b6ae7b33cf5085afe | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Noe-Mawaggali | Saint Noe Mawaggali | Saint Noe Mawaggali
…Kaggwa, chief of Kigowa; and Noe Mawaggali, a Roman Catholic leader. The page Jean Marie Muzeyi was beheaded on January 27, 1887.
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3ad41f01446cf97aca10023c766624f8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Norbert-of-Xanten | Saint Norbert of Xanten | Saint Norbert of Xanten
Saint Norbert of Xanten, (born c. 1080, Xanten, Duchy of Lower Lorraine [Germany]—died June 6, 1134, Magdeburg, Saxony; canonized 1582; feast day June 6, among Premonstratensians July 11), archbishop of Magdeburg and founder of the Premonstratensians (Norbertines, or White Canons), a congregation of priests.
Norbert was ordained in 1115. Failing to reform his peers at the collegiate church of Xanten, he traveled throughout France and Belgium, preaching moral reform. In 1119 Pope Calixtus II asked him to found a religious institute at Prémontré, Fr. With such notable disciples as Hugh of Fosses and St. Evermod, he established his community, the Premonstratensians, in 1120. The congregation was dedicated to preaching, pastoral work, and education. Norbert adopted the rule of Bishop St. Augustine of Hippo for his new order, and he modeled its constitutions after that of the Cistercians, an austere group of cloistered, vegetarian monks practicing perpetual silence. His monastery at Prémontré became the motherhouse of the Premonstratensians.
Norbert was chosen archbishop of Magdeburg in 1126. He became an important church figure four years later when he defended Pope Innocent II, whose claim to the papacy was threatened by Antipope Anacletus II. Norbert won the German church for Innocent’s cause and influenced the German king Lothar II/III to defend Innocent.
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13a815ceaa1f5efaea12c1b554ee62a4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Nuno-Alvares-Pereira | Saint Nuno Álvares Pereira | Saint Nuno Álvares Pereira
Saint Nuno Álvares Pereira, also called Saint Nuno of Saint Mary, Nuno Álvares also spelled Nun’álvares, (born June 24, 1360, Bonjardim, Portugal—died April 1, 1431, Lisbon; canonized April 26, 2009; feast day November 6), outstanding Portuguese military leader, known also as the Holy Constable, whose victory over Castilian forces in the historic Battle of Aljubarrota (August 14, 1385) ensured his nation’s independence.
Pereira distinguished himself in battle at age 13, fighting against the Castilians in their invasion of 1373. On the death of Ferdinand I of Portugal (October 1383), Pereira came forward as a supporter of João of Aviz (later John I, king of Portugal), the illegitimate son of Ferdinand’s father, Peter I, against the claims of Ferdinand’s daughter Beatriz, whose marriage to John I of Castile posed a threat to Portugal’s independence. In January 1384 John I invaded Portugal. Despite the fact that most of his family favoured Castile, Pereira continued to support João and defeated the Castilians in the Battle of Atoleiros (April 6, 1384). Further brilliant and heroic actions as a field commander won him the office of constable of the kingdom in 1385.
Although the Castilians had withdrawn in 1384, they invaded again the following year and moved on Lisbon. Although his forces were greatly outnumbered, Pereira blocked the Castilians at Aljubarrota, won a decisive victory, and continued to fight against them until the final peace of October 30, 1411. He gave all his support to the expedition that captured Portugal’s first African possession, Ceuta (in northern Morocco), from the Moors in 1415.
John I of Portugal rewarded Pereira with titles and extensive lands and properties. Pereira’s daughter Beatriz married John I’s legitimated son Afonso and thus became ancestor of the House of Bragança, which in 1640 became the ruling house of Portugal. Pereira, who had had a Carmelite house built in Lisbon in fulfillment of a vow, entered it himself after his wife’s death as Friar Nuno de Santa Maria in 1423. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XV on January 23, 1918, and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on April 26, 2009.
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a110fbb643d62a15d323fcc2b7ae23c8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paulinus | Saint Paulinus | Saint Paulinus
Saint Paulinus, (born 584?, Rome [Italy]—died 644, Rochester, Kent, Eng.; feast day October 10), Italian missionary who converted Northumbria to Christianity, became the first bishop of York, and was later made archbishop of Rochester.
In 601 Paulinus was sent with St. Mellitus (later first bishop of London) and St. Justus (later first bishop of Rochester) to England by Pope St. Gregory I the Great to assist Archbishop St. Augustine of Canterbury in his mission of converting England to Christianity. Paulinus was consecrated bishop at Kent (625) by Justus (then fourth archbishop of Canterbury) and escorted the daughter of King Aethelberht (Ethelbert) of Kent to the Northumbrian king Edwin. Paulinus converted and baptized Edwin (627), who made him first bishop of York, after which Paulinus’ missions spread throughout Northumbria. When in 632 Edwin was slain by the Anglo-Saxon kings Caedwalla and Penda, Paulinus fled to Kent, where he became bishop of Rochester. He became archbishop in 634, when he received the pallium (i.e., symbol of metropolitan jurisdiction) from Pope Honorius I.
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2fa14788d6bfdeff4e5d2ecbc793ea77 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paulinus-of-Nola | Saint Paulinus of Nola | Saint Paulinus of Nola
Saint Paulinus of Nola, byname of Meropius Pontius Anicius Paulinus, (born ad 353, Burdigala, Gaul [now Bordeaux, France]—died June 22, 431, Nola, Italy; feast day June 22), bishop of Nola and one of the most important Christian Latin poets of his time.
Paulinus became successively a Roman senator, consul, and governor of Campania, a region of southern Italy. Returning to Aquitaine he married and in 389 retired with his wife to Spain. The death of their only child, in 392, influenced them to sell their possessions in Gaul and Spain. In 395 Paulinus was ordained priest and with his wife settled at Nola to live an ascetic life devoted to charity.
Paulinus’ act of renunciation caused his old master, the Latin poet and rhetorician Ausonius, to write reproaches in verse, to which Paulinus replied in poetical epistles. Paulinus’ style generally echoes that of such classical authors as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. His poems (395–407) on the feast day of St. Felix of Nola are particularly charming and are regarded as the chief source of Felix’ life. Paulinus also promoted the saint’s cult and built a basilica at Nola dedicated to him.
Some 50 of his extant letters correspond with famous contemporaries, including Saints Augustine and Jerome and the celebrated ascetic Sulpicius Severus. Paulinus’ prose style is often rhetorical and exuberant: he could describe in dignified language his cold reception by Pope St. Siricius, or satirize the ignorance of those who could not understand the life of renunciation. About 409 Paulinus was consecrated bishop of Nola.
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a9e45a672c22830453c739a64cfbfbb5 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Peter-Chrysologus | Saint Peter Chrysologus | Saint Peter Chrysologus
Saint Peter Chrysologus, (born c. 400/406, Imola, near Ravenna—died c. 450, Imola; feast day July 30), archbishop of Ravenna, whose orthodox discourses earned him the status of doctor of the church. The title Chrysologus (Golden Orator) was added to his name at a later date, probably to create a Western counterpart to the Eastern patriarch St. John Chrysostom.
About 433 he became archbishop of Ravenna, where, with the aid of Galla Placidia, the mother of the Roman emperor Valentinian III, he promoted the construction of church buildings. He was a close friend of Pope St. Leo I the Great and was highly respected by the Western and Eastern churches for his orthodoxy. In 448 when the Eastern monk Eutyches was condemned for founding Eutychianism, an extreme form of Monophysitism teaching that Christ’s nature was only human and not also divine, he appealed to Peter, whose reply withheld judgment but instructed Eutyches to be obedient to Leo.
Many of Peter’s homilies survive, including the letter to Eutyches. In the standard collection of 176 sermons made in the 8th century, however, several are not authentic. His short sermons stress the fundamental Christian doctrines and the duties of Christian life in keeping with the needs and ideals of the times. Peter was declared a doctor of the church by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729. G. Ganss’s Saint Peter Chrysologus: Selected Sermons appeared in 1953.
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eb5925763bec00e260e147b146691e70 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Peter-Claver | St. Peter Claver | St. Peter Claver
St. Peter Claver, Spanish San Pedro Claver, (born 1581, Verdú, Spain—died September 4, 1654, Cartagena, Colombia; canonized 1888; feast day September 9), Jesuit missionary to South America who, in dedicating his life to the aid of enslaved Africans, earned the title of “apostle of the Negroes.”
Peter entered the Society of Jesus in 1602 and eight years later was sent to Cartagena, where he was ordained in 1616. The miserable condition of enslaved people aboard ships and in the pens of Cartagena, South America’s chief slave market, caused Peter to declare himself “the slave of the Negroes forever”; he dedicated the rest of his life to alleviating their suffering. Accompanied by interpreters and carrying food and medicines, he boarded every incoming slave ship and visited the pens, where he nursed the sick, comforted the distraught and terrified captives, and taught religion. Despite strong official opposition, Peter persevered for 38 years, baptizing an estimated 300,000 enslaved individuals. He also visited them on the local plantations to encourage their faith and to exhort their masters to treat them humanely; during these visits he often refused the hospitality of the plantation owners and instead stayed in the slave quarters.
He was canonized by Pope Leo XIII, who in 1896 proclaimed him patron of all Roman Catholic missions to African peoples. Peter is also the patron saint of those in slavery and the Republic of Colombia.
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20f8030f671ca01bcd5e38ffe349ae05 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Pius-I | Saint Pius I | Saint Pius I
Saint Pius I, (born, Aquileia, Venetia—died 155, Rome; feast day July 11), Latin pope from c. 142 to c. 155.
Pius was a slave, according to his supposed brother, the apostolic father Hermas. As pope, Pius combatted Gnosticism—a religious movement teaching that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through spiritual truth attained only by revelatory esoteric knowledge—and the Marcionites, followers of a heretical Christianity proposing especially a doctrine of two gods as taught by the semi-Gnostic Marcion, whom Pius is believed to have excommunicated in 144/150. The claim that Pius was martyred is unsubstantiated.
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004f815537e952e8532e1ef6fff771f3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Quadratus | St. Quadratus | St. Quadratus
St. Quadratus, (flourished 2nd century; feast day May 26), the earliest known apologist for Christianity.
With only a fragment of his Apology for Christianity still extant, preserved in the Ecclesiastical History of the 4th-century scholar Eusebius of Caesarea, Quadratus has not been clearly identified. Addressed from Asia Minor to the Roman emperor Hadrian during a persecution either in 124 or 129, the Apology is thought to have been written by a disciple of the early 2nd-century Eastern Church Fathers St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna. The 5th-century biblical scholar St. Jerome erroneously identified the author with Bishop Quadratus of Athens, who lived during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161–180). Eusebius offered the improbable opinion that the author was a prophet and disciple of Christ’s first apostles. More recently, scholars have attempted, unconvincingly, to equate Quadratus’ apology with the Letter to Diognetus, a 2nd-century Christian treatise against paganism and Judaism; to relate it to anonymous accounts of early Christian martyrs; or to recognize it as part of the early medieval eulogy for monasticism in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat.
According to Eusebius, Quadratus wrote in response to sharp attacks on the Christian religion. The same source records that the Apology expressed a primitive orthodoxy by arguing for the truthfulness of Christ’s teachings by reason of his miracles in healing the sick and in restoring life to the dead, some of whom were known to Quadratus. This biblical theological approach is the classical exemplar of the oldest post-apostolic doctrine. The surviving text of Quadratus’ Apology was edited by E.J. Goodspeed, Die ältesten Apologeten (1914; “The Oldest Apologists”).
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61cd803e9c2fcba39594c9827460de8f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Seraphim-of-Sarov | Saint Seraphim of Sarov | Saint Seraphim of Sarov
Saint Seraphim of Sarov, Russian Svyatoy Serafim Sarovsky, original name Prokhor Moshnin, (born July 19, 1759, Kursk, Russia—died Jan. 2, 1833, Sarov Monastery, Tambov; canonized 1903; feast day January 2), Russian monk and mystic whose ascetic practice and counseling in cases of conscience won him the title starets (Russian: “spiritual teacher”). He is one of the most renowned monastic figures in Russian Orthodox history.
He took the religious name Seraphim on entering the Monastery of Sarov in 1777. After ordination to the priesthood in 1793, he withdrew as a solitary to a forest hut near the monastery. After 25 years as a hermit he returned to an active, pastoral ministry in Sarov in 1815, following the direction indicated by a spiritual experience that Seraphim attributed to the Virgin Mary. He served as confessor to a number of the surrounding faithful and to pilgrims and was reputed to work some wonders, including the discernment of thoughts and conscience.
Seraphim’s spiritual doctrine centred on a program of contemplative prayer directed toward mystical experience. He was original in extending to laypersons the traditional monastic method of contemplation, which included self-denial to combat vices and meditative methods toward ecstatic prayer. Seraphim maintained that prayer was not limited to the cloistered mystic but was within the capacity of any Christian. He was acclaimed a saint by the Russian Orthodox church in 1903 and proposed as a standard for spirituality.
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3bf39a11d52a4d947c754b6d97f8f890 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Silas | St. Silas | St. Silas
St. Silas, also called Saint Silvanus, (born, possibly Rome—died 50 ce; Western feast day July 13, Eastern feast day July 30), early Christian prophet and missionary, companion of St. Paul the Apostle.
It is generally believed that the Silas in Acts and the Silvanus in 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and 1 Peter are the same. Acts 15:22 first mentions him as one of the “leading men among the brethren” (i.e., the Christian community at Jerusalem); they sent him to Antioch (now Antakya, Turkey), where he is identified as a prophet (Acts 15:32) preaching to the Antiochene Christians.
He supposedly remained in Antioch until he was chosen to join Paul on his second journey. According to Acts, he replaced St. Barnabas, who had broken away from Paul. With Paul, Silas traveled through what is now Turkey, visiting Syria and Cilicia, whose churches they strengthened; from Derbe they went to Lystra where they were joined by St. Timothy. Their journey brought them to Galatia and Troas, from where they sailed to Macedonia.
At Philippi (near present-day Kavála, Greece), where Paul first preached the gospel in Europe, Silas and Paul were beaten and imprisoned for healing an enslaved girl possessed by “a spirit of divination.” After their release, they missioned in Thessalonica. Expelled, they went to Beroea, where Silas remained with Timothy while Paul traveled to Athens. He later rejoined Paul at Corinth. Silas and Timothy are mentioned in 2 Corinthians 1:19 as coworkers and in 1 and 2 Thessalonians as coauthors.
Nothing further is known about Silas’s work with Paul. Sometime later he apparently joined St. Peter the Apostle, whom he seems to have served as secretary; 1 Peter 5:12 suggests that Silas wrote this letter with Peter, and some scholars give him a prominent place among the New Testament writers. Subsequent legend designates him the first bishop of Corinth.
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3de49212459712b1f5898a98fa217e08 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Simplicius | Saint Simplicius | Saint Simplicius
Saint Simplicius, (born, Tivoli, near Rome [Italy]—died March 10, 483, Rome; feast day March 10), pope from 468 to 483. He became Pope St. Hilary’s successor on March 3, 468, during a period that was turbulent ecclesiastically and politically.
During Simplicius’ pontificate the Eastern church was torn between orthodoxy and Monophysitism, a doctrine teaching that Christ has only one nature rather than two—i.e., human and divine—and in particular by disputes between partisans and opponents of the orthodox Council (451) of Chalcedon, which had condemned Monophysitism. When Basiliscus usurped power from the Eastern Roman emperor Zeno in January 475, he supported the Monophysites, who gained control of the key sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. When the emperor Zeno regained power from Basiliscus in August 476, it was assumed that he would restore orthodoxy in the East, but instead he pursued a conciliatory approach to the Monophysite controversy.
In the meantime, Simplicius witnessed the end of the Western Roman Empire when no successor was nominated after the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 by the barbarian Odoacer. By grant of Zeno, Odoacer then became patrician and in effect the first king of Italy.
In 482 Zeno promulgated his Henotikon, a conciliatory document that reaffirmed the doctrines of the Council of Nicaea (325) and made a disparaging reference to the Council of Chalcedon. The Henotikon was acceptable to the Monophysites and produced some religious peace in the East. Acacius, the bishop of Constantinople, who had previously sided with the papacy in defense of Chalcedonian orthodoxy, now abandoned Simplicius and subscribed to the Henotikon, but his action caused a schism (the Acacian Schism) with Rome. Simplicius remained steadfast in upholding Chalcedonian orthodoxy and opposing Zeno’s pro-Monophysitic policy.
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8aa0ba220577d45884f9fba22e58ee3e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Soter | Saint Soter | Saint Soter
Saint Soter, (born, Fondi, Latium [Italy]—died c. 175, Rome; feast day April 22), pope from about 166 to about 175.
Succeeding St. Anicetus as pope, Soter sent a letter and alms to the church of Corinth, whose bishop, St. Dionysius, replied in a letter that acknowledged Soter’s affection and theological advice. Soter continued Pope Anicetus’ attack against Montanism, a heresy overemphasizing prophecy and rigid moral norms. Although no account of Soter’s death survives, he is honoured as a martyr.
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c3f75129d82b2a77ead8a540b88e6b19 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Timothy | Saint Timothy | Saint Timothy
Saint Timothy, (born, Lystra, Lycaonia [now Lusna, Tur.]—died ad 97, Ephesus [now in Turkey]; Western feast day January 24 [in Roman church January 26 with Titus], Eastern feast day January 22), disciple of St. Paul the Apostle, whom he accompanied on his missions; traditional martyr and first bishop of Ephesus.
On his second visit to Lystra in 50, Paul discovered Timothy, taking him as a colleague but first circumcising him out of respect for his Jewish mother and the custom of the Jews in whose communities they were to do mission work (Acts 16:1–3). Timothy worked with Paul and Silas and helped found churches, notably in Corinth, Thessalonica, and Philippi. He apparently accompanied Paul to Ephesus and Asia Minor (Acts 19:22; 1 Corinthians 16:10–11). As the presence of his name in the first verses of Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians indicates, he was subsequently associated with Paul’s imprisonment at Ephesus. In the Pastoral Epistles he is solely in charge of the Christians at Ephesus, possibly the site of his release from prison as chronicled in Hebrews 13:23.
Tradition, probably based on New Testament inferences, made him first bishop of Ephesus, where he was allegedly martyred under the Roman emperor Nerva. One legend asserts that he was clubbed to death by a mob for protesting against the orgiastic worship of the goddess Artemis.
Paul’s two Pastoral Epistles addressed to Timothy reveal concern for his well-being, and he is praised in 1 Corinthians, Philippians, and Romans. He is also mentioned in 1 and 2 Thessalonians and 2 Corinthians. St. John of Damascus states that Timothy witnessed the end of the life of the Virgin Mary.
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28dda84a1ccd28747a9aed1a1dcd95a0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Veronica | St. Veronica | St. Veronica
St. Veronica, (flourished 1st century ce, Jerusalem; feast day July 12), renowned legendary woman who, moved by the sight of Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha, gave him her kerchief to wipe his brow, after which he handed it back imprinted with the image of his face. In Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and certain other Christian traditions, she is honoured at the sixth station in the meditative Stations of the Cross. Her imprinted kerchief is commonly known as the Veil of Veronica, or simply Veronica, and there are several existing images that are each purported to be the original relic or an early copy of it.
The account of St. Veronica is thought to be a legend originally derived from Historia ecclesiastica (written 312–324; Ecclesiastical History) by Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius tells us that at Caesarea Philippi there lived the woman whom Christ healed of a hemorrhage (Matthew 9:20). In the apocryphal Acts of Pilate (4th/5th century), this woman is identified with the name Veronica. Later tradition held that Christ gave the healed Veronica a miraculous cloth, which was allegedly used to cure the emperor Tiberius of leprosy, and the cloth was eventually understood as being the Veil of Veronica. In France, Veronica was reportedly married to the convert Zaccheus the tax collector (Luke 19:1–10). In the Bordeaux district, she supposedly brought relics of the Blessed Virgin to Soulac-sur-Mer, where she died and was buried. By some accounts, the name Veronica is itself a fanciful derivation from the words vera icon (Latin icon from Greek eikōn), meaning “true image,” and was originally used for the kerchief and later applied to the legendary woman.
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cc79e42cfcf610dad418509e037e469b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Wilfrid | Saint Wilfrid | Saint Wilfrid
Saint Wilfrid, also called Wilfrid of York, (born 634, Northumbria, Eng.—died April 24, 709/710, monastery of Oundle, Mercia, Eng.; feast day October 12), one of the greatest English saints, a monk and bishop who was outstanding in bringing about close relations between the Anglo-Saxon Church and the papacy. He devoted his life to establishing the observances of the Roman Church over those of the Celtic Church and fought a stormy series of controversies on discipline and precedent.
In 648 Wilfrid entered the celebrated monastery of Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland. Later he went to Canterbury and then set out in 652 for Rome. Having spent three years in Lyon, Fr., he returned to Northumbria in 657/658. Soon he received a monastery at Ripon, Yorkshire, from King Oswiu’s son, Alhfrith. He was ordained a priest in 663/664 by the Gaulish bishop Agilbert, for whom he acted as spokesman at the Synod of Whitby (664), successfully advocating the rejection of Celtic practices in favour of Roman. Alhfrith had him elected bishop of York, but Wilfrid refused to be consecrated by Celtic bishops and was therefore consecrated at Compiègne, Fr.
Meanwhile, Oswiu appointed St. Chad as bishop of York instead, and Wilfrid on his return lived (666–669) at Ripon. He was restored in 669, when Archbishop St. Theodore of Canterbury deposed Chad, and he thereby became primate of Northumbria. He built a monastery at Hexham and introduced the Benedictine Rule to the kingdom. In 677 Theodore divided Wilfrid’s diocese, and Wilfrid appealed to Rome (the first English ecclesiastic to do so), where he arrived in 679 after having helped convert the Frisians (winter of 677–678). Pope St. Agatho and a Roman synod (October 679) ordered his restoration but accepted the division of his diocese on condition that he, with a local council, appoint the new bishops.
King Ecgfrith, Oswiu’s successor, refused to obey the papal mandate, however, and apparently imprisoned Wilfrid, who finally took refuge in Sussex, Christianizing its people and founding a monastery at Selsey. In 685 he joined King Caedwalla of Wessex, who gave him a quarter of his conquests in the Isle of Wight. Aldfrith, Ecgfrith’s successor, recalled him in 686/687. Although his deposition and its nullification following Agatho’s injunctions were reissued by popes SS. Benedict II and Sergius I, Wilfrid still remained improperly restored. Demanding the fulfillment of his rights granted by Agatho, he spent 11 years in exile, acting as bishop in Mercia. A council was held in 702, but Wilfrid, refusing to promise unconditional acceptance of the Archbishop’s rulings, went again to Rome, where his case was debated during 704. Though the Roman synod cleared Wilfrid of charges against him, it referred the question back to an English synod that met in Yorkshire in 705. Wilfrid, no longer insisting on York, was given his monasteries of Ripon and Hexham, becoming bishop of Hexham in 705 and retaining his monasteries in Mercia. He was buried at Ripon.
Wilfrid spread the knowledge of the Benedictine Rule, brought religious treasures from the Continent, and helped improve the chanting of the liturgy. He was a great builder at York, Ripon, and Hexham. He was one of the first to conceive the idea of Anglo-Saxons evangelizing the Germanic peoples. St. Willibrord, the apostle of Friesland and patron saint of Holland, was his devoted pupil, and he also consecrated St. Swithberht. In ecclesiastical policies, he fought steadily against the setting aside of papal authority by a local church subjected to secular power; rare for his time and place, he upheld utter papal supremacy. A life of Wilfrid by his disciple Eddi was translated into English in 1927 by B. Colgrave.
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01618cfdfe7776160d77be521a8c985a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Willibrord | Saint Willibrord | Saint Willibrord
Saint Willibrord, also called Willibrord of Utrecht, Willibrord also spelled Wilbrord, (born 658?, Northumbria, probably near York, England—died November 7, 739, Echternach, Austrasia; feast day November 7), Anglo-Saxon bishop and missionary, apostle of Friesland, and a patron saint of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The son of the hermit St. Wilgis, Willibrord was sent by him to the Benedictine monastery of Ripon, England, under Abbot St. Wilfrid of York. After Wilfrid was deposed and exiled in 677/678, Willibrord also went into exile, spending 12 years in Ireland, where he became a disciple of St. Egbert. He was ordained a priest in 688.
In 690 Egbert sent Willibrord with 11 companions to undertake the Christianization of the Frisians, whose districts had recently been conquered (689) by Pippin II of Herstal. Willibrord began the policy of mutual cooperation between the English missions and the Carolingian dynasty. He went to Rome in 690 for a commission from Pope St. Sergius I and was later sent again by Pippin for his consecration (November 21, 695) as archbishop of the Frisians, with a see to be established at Utrecht, Netherlands. On that occasion, Sergius renamed him Clement. Willibrord’s unusual respect for Roman authority had established a precedent that greatly increased papal influence in the affairs of the Frankish church.
In 698 Willibrord established his second missionary base, the important monastery of Echternach. Having extended his apostolate into Friesland, he attempted to evangelize Denmark, where he instructed and baptized 30 boys; returning with them, he made dramatic stops on the Frisian islands of Helgoland and Walcheren. In 714 he baptized Pippin III the Short, heir to the Merovingian kingdom. Upon the death of Pippin II, the pagan Frisian king Radbod launched a highly destructive campaign against the Christians and banished Willibrord.
After Radbod’s death in 719, Willibrord, with the aid of the Frankish king Charles Martel, regained his apostolate. From 719 to 722 he was assisted in his missionary work by the man who carried on his work after 739, Wynfrith (St. Boniface), apostle of Germany. While training a native clergy, he established in the Frankish kingdoms an English cultural influence that was to dominate Charlemagne’s court through the extensive labours of later missionaries. He began in the West the appointment of chōrepiscopoi (“country bishops”), or suffragan bishops (i.e., bishops of sees under an archbishop, or metropolitan), and he introduced into the Franks’ dominions the practice of dating by the Christian Era.
Willibrord was buried in the abbey church of Echternach. The “Calendar of St. Willibrord” (a calendar of saints, with some lines attributed to Willibrord) was printed in facsimile in 1918.
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3a4cff57766f55dcdbd38127410d7bae | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Zacharias | Saint Zacharias | Saint Zacharias
Saint Zacharias, English Zachary, (born, San Severino, duchy of Benevento [Italy]—died March 14/22, 752, Rome; feast day March 15), pope from 741 to 752.
The last of the Greek popes, Zacharias was supposedly a Roman deacon when he succeeded Pope St. Gregory III in November/December 741. His pontificate was devoted to diplomatic relations with the Lombard and Frankish kingdoms and with the Byzantine Empire. He initiated a policy of conciliation with the Lombards while endeavouring to dissuade their rulers, Liutprand and Rachis, from conquering the Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna. Successful, he thus made peace with the Lombards. He maintained amiable relations with the Byzantine emperor Constantine V Copronymus, whom he advised to restore the veneration of icons.
Zacharias’s relations with the Franks were similarly cordial, and his correspondence with St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, shows how great his influence was on contemporary events in the Frankish kingdom. In 741 he made Boniface legate and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. He supported the deposition (751–752) of Childeric III, the last Merovingian king, and authorized the Frankish church to anoint Pippin III the Short as king of the Franks. Zacharias’s action in the transference of the royal crown from the Merovingians to the house of Pippin (Carolingians) began a new era for church and state by establishing the Carolingian-papal alliance, which was to be of the greatest significance in future relations between pope and emperor and was of extreme importance to the theorists and controversialists of the Investiture Controversy (11th and 12th centuries). The latter dispute concerned secular rulers’ right to invest bishops and abbots, which right became one of the paramount aspects in the struggle for power between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.
Zacharias is known especially in the East for his Greek translation of the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory I the Great.
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ee7cd93f35324f12de564ccb2d2e7a35 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sakakura-Junzo | Sakakura Junzō | Sakakura Junzō
Sakakura Junzō, (born May 29, 1904, Gifu prefecture, Japan—died September 1, 1969, Tokyo), architect who was one of the first to combine 20th-century European architecture with elements from the traditional Japanese style.
Sakakura’s first outstanding work in an East-West blend was the Japanese pavilion at the 1937 World Exposition in Paris. He by then had been working with the Swiss architect Le Corbusier for eight years, and he continued to be known as the leading advocate in Japan of Le Corbusier’s idiom. Sakakura returned to Japan, which was embroiled in wars from 1937 to 1945, and thus he designed no buildings until the 1950s. Some of his outstanding works are the Museum of Modern Art at Kamakura (1951), the Hajima Town Hall at Gifu (1959), the city hall at Hiraoka (1964), the Kanagawa Prefectural Office Building at Yokohama (1966), and the Shinjuku Station Square and Odakyū Department Store in Tokyo (1964–67).
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8fb35f8af3ac993e142b9f2572ba34cd | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sakari-Yrjo-Koskinen | Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen | Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen
Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen, original name Georg Zacharias Forsman, (born 1830, Vaasa, Fin.—died Nov. 13, 1903, Helsingfors), historian and politician, author of the first history of Finland in Finnish. Later he guided the Old Finn Party in its policy of compliance with Russia’s unconstitutional Russification program in Finland.
Forsman—later, when he was made a baron, named Yrjö-Koskinen—was a nationalist scholar and a member of the mid-19th-century Fennoman Party, which advocated the development of the Finnish language and its ascendancy over the Swedish of Finland’s dominant minority. In his Suomen kansan historia (1869–72; “Finnish National History”) he demonstrated that Finnish was a suitable language for higher cultural development. Becoming leader of the Fennoman Party in the 1870s, Yrjö-Koskinen entered the Finnish Diet (estates assembly) in 1872 and was appointed to the Senate (the Finnish government) in 1882. Both in the legislative and in the executive bodies he consistently championed the extension of Finnish in all sectors of the grand duchy’s society. With the start of intensive Russification in 1898, the Fennoman Party split into a constitutionalist Young Finn group, which opposed by passive resistance the Russian abrogation of the Finnish constitution, and Yrjö-Koskinen’s Old Finn majority, which chose to comply with the reactionary measures of the imperial government. The Old Finns were rewarded with control of the Senate, of which Yrjö-Koskinen became head, as well as with a declaration of Finnish equality with Swedish in all public business. In the end, however, the policy of the “compliers” proved bankrupt, and Yrjö-Koskinen was subjected to hostile demonstrations in his last days.
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7a2dc5bc75a13817f800821f29d38446 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sakurada-Jisuke-I | Sakurada Jisuke I | Sakurada Jisuke I
Sakurada Jisuke I, pseudonym Sato, (born 1734, Edo [now Tokyo], Japan—died 1806, Edo), kabuki dramatist who created more than 120 plays and at least 100 dance dramas.
After completing his studies with Horikoshi Nisōji in 1762, Sakurada moved to Kyōto to write plays for a theatre there. On his return to Edo three years later he became chief playwright at the Morita-za (Morita Theatre). For the rest of the century he was a leading playwright at Edo, becoming the chief writer for the actors Ichikawa Danjūrō III and V and Matsumoto Kōshirō V. Among his most popular plays were Oshiegusa Yoshiwara suzume (1768) and Date kurabe Okuni Kabuki (1778).
Sakurada’s work is distinguished by its wit. He was a biting satirist, excelled at dramas of everyday life (sewamono), and became famous for his refined verse. Sakurada’s name was adopted by a succession of disciples who achieved lesser prominence in the kabuki theatre. Foremost among them were Sakurada Jisuke II (1768–1829) and Sakurada Jisuke III (1802–77).
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ae2cf75b4aae39a884ea90f2d90e3941 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salah-Abd-al-Sabur | Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabur | Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabur
The modern Egyptian poet Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr, for instance, depicts a rural preacher in his “Al-Nās fī bilādī” (1957; “The People in My Country”):
…Khalīl Ḥawī and the Egyptian Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr, both as well acquainted with the classical canon of Arabic poetry as they were with recent trends in the West, left behind them divans that, like that of al-Sayyāb, are already acknowledged as 20th-century classics of Arabic poetry.
…al-Ṣāʾigh, or the Egyptian dramatist Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabur, made use of traditional imagery in a new, sometimes esoteric, often fascinating and daring way.
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e4eadb7cd2dd1c397aa6e4631a39c75d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salah-Khalaf | Ṣalāḥ Khalaf | Ṣalāḥ Khalaf
Ṣalāḥ Khalaf, also called Abū ʿIyāḍ, (born 1933, Jaffa, Palestine [now Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel]—died January 14, 1991, Tunis, Tunisia), Palestinian political activist who was a founding member of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and a close associate of PLO leader Yāsir ʿArafāt.
Khalaf’s family fled to the Gaza Strip in 1948 during the conflict that accompanied Israel’s independence. In 1951 he went to study at the University of Cairo, where he met ʿArafāt and Khalīl Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, and in the late 1950s Khalaf helped the two men establish Fatah, an organization dedicated to wresting historic Palestine from Israeli control; by the late 1960s Fatah had effectively taken control of the PLO. Khalaf was living in Jordan when fighting erupted there in September 1970 between Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian army, which had been instructed to expel the PLO from the country. He was arrested and given a death sentence, which was not carried out.
Following the tumultuous events in Jordan, Khalaf (by then using the nom de guerre Abū ʿIyāḍ) reportedly organized a group known as Black September, which conducted terrorist operations in Jordan and elsewhere. He was thought to have orchestrated a number of the group’s actions, including the killing of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Olympic Summer Games in Munich, West Germany. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, however, he began seeking a peaceful two-state resolution to the Palestinian question. Although he supported the Palestinian intifāḍah in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Khalaf in 1988 pressed the Palestine National Council to formally accept Israel’s existence and to work for the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories. That year Khalaf became ʿArafāt’s second in command following the death of al-Wazīr. His opposition to Syria’s intervention in Lebanon and to ʿArafāt’s close ties to Iraqi leader Ṣaddām Ḥussein, however, angered some, and he was killed by a member of the extremist group Abū Niḍāl, purportedly under orders from Iraq.
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b834d726f4245ba71bff213b8552081e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salgado-de-Somoza | Salgado de Somoza | Salgado de Somoza
…jurist of the 17th century, Salgado de Somoza, elaborated detailed rules for the initiation and conduct of voluntary liquidation proceedings, which were styled “concourse of creditors.” His tract, entitled Labyrinthus Creditorum, influenced the course of Spanish law and also had great impact on the common law of the German states.…
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f61b6b33134ae4ef72bb17774cbbe4c9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sali-Berisha | Sali Berisha | Sali Berisha
…president and was succeeded by Sali Berisha, the first democratic leader of Albania since Bishop Noli.
…of seats in parliament, and Berisha, who had been the dominant figure in Albanian politics since the fall of communism, conceded defeat. In 2014 Albania was granted candidate status for accession to the EU, but the country’s progress toward full membership depended on the enactment of significant political and economic…
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2523e723ec6a693f534bb8df160dc9b4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salinguerra-Torelli | Salinguerra Torelli | Salinguerra Torelli
Salinguerra Torelli, (born c. 1160—died c. 1244, Venice [Italy]), 13th-century Italian ruler of Ferrara and brother-in-law and chief supporter of Ezzelino III da Romano, despot of Verona, a prominent leader of the Ghibelline (imperial) party.
Torelli was born into a noble family of Bolognese origin whose members were rivals of the Este in Ferrara from the end of the 12th century. He carried on an indecisive struggle with Azzo VI of Este until the latter’s death in 1212. When Azzo’s son Aldobrandino died three years later, Torelli seized Ferrara and, with Ezzelino’s support, successfully resisted the efforts of Azzo VII of Este to recover the city.
Temporarily removed from power in Verona by a popular (democratic) government in 1227, Ezzelino engineered Torelli’s election as podestà (chief magistrate) of that city in 1230, but the following year a Lombard League of northern Italian cities ousted both Ezzelino and Torelli. Forming an alliance with the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II, Ezzelino recovered Verona and helped Torelli regain Ferrara in 1236. In 1240, however, Ferrara surrendered to Guelf (papal) forces, and Torelli died in prison.
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9eef4f0a65f6709aa8b4cb390f3cbbc1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sally-Morgan | Sally Morgan | Sally Morgan
(Kath Walker, Colin Johnson, Sally Morgan), and politics (Neville Thomas Bonner, senator, 1971–83, and Aden Ridgeway, senator from 1999).
Sally Morgan’s autobiography, My Place (1987), is a moving account of her discovery of her identity and family history. It is also social and cultural history. And Kim Scott, with his novel Benang (1999), became the first Aboriginal writer to win the prestigious Miles Franklin…
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7c3f76d0fc85c6687db601788deea101 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salman-ibn-Abd-al-Aziz | Salman ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz | Salman ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz
…crown prince by his brother, Salman ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz. Despite the formation of the Allegiance Council in 2006, the mechanisms for determining the line of succession beyond the surviving sons of Ibn Saud, all advanced in age, remained unclear.
…2015, and was succeeded by Salman. In his first statements as king, Salman vowed to maintain continuity with the policies of his predecessor.
…death in 2015, his half-brother Salman was appointed king.
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9fa79055d6859793f6bc37d458ba6662 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salo-Wittmayer-Baron | Salo Wittmayer Baron | Salo Wittmayer Baron
Salo Wittmayer Baron, (born May 26, 1895, Tarnow, Austria [now in Poland]—died Nov. 25, 1989, New York, N.Y., U.S.), Austrian-born American historian who spent much of his life compiling the multivolume magnum opus A Social and Religious History of the Jews (1937), originally published in three volumes but later revised and expanded into 18 volumes.
Baron, who was ordained a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Vienna (1920), earned three doctorate degrees from the University of Vienna: in philosophy (1917), political science (1922), and law (1923). He learned 20 languages and was able to lecture extemporaneously in five of them. He wrote and edited many works on Jewish history and served as a professor at Columbia University in New York City (1930–63).
At the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem on April 24, 1961, Baron set the historic framework for the Israelis’ prosecution case by testifying about anti-Semitism, European Jewry, and the atrocities committed by the Nazis. In 1979 Columbia University established the Salo Wittmayer Baron Chair of Jewish History, Culture and Society in his honour.
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6f7830f91908791d0d096c531df35f3e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salomon-de-Brosse | Salomon de Brosse | Salomon de Brosse
Salomon de Brosse, (born 1571, Verneuil-sur-Oise, Fr.—died Dec. 9, 1626, Paris), most influential French architect of the early 17th century, whose works facilitated the development of the classical châteaus designed by the generation that followed him.
De Brosse was born into a family of Protestant architects. He trained under his father and then quickly achieved success on his own. As architect to the queen regent, Marie de Médicis, from 1608, he prepared designs for the Palais du Luxembourg (built c. 1614–30), which featured a rusticated facade influenced by those of Italian Renaissance palazzi. This work and three châteaus—Coulommiers (1613), Montceaux (completed 1615), and especially Blérancourt (completed prior to 1619)—strongly influenced later architects, particularly François Mansart, who worked under de Brosse at Coulommiers.
His two most important public works were the renovation of the hall of the Palais de Justice at Paris and construction of the Palais du Parlement of Brittany at Rennes. In 1623 he rebuilt the Protestant temple at Charenton, but his most influential church design is the novel facade for Saint-Gervais (begun 1616), which combines a lofty Gothic nave with a classical facade.
De Brosse’s importance as a designer lay in his bold and simple treatments of elevations, facades, and ground plans. A detailed understanding of his achievements is impossible because of the destruction or heavy alteration of virtually all his major buildings.
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d08e24be818236b68f623956e45f66ab | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salomon-van-Ruysdael | Salomon van Ruysdael | Salomon van Ruysdael
Salomon van Ruysdael, original name Salomon de Goyer, (born c. 1600, Naarden, United Provinces [Netherlands]—buried November 1, 1670, Haarlem), Dutch landscape painter in the Baroque style, uncle of the landscape artist Jacob van Ruisdael.
Originally named de Goyer, as was his brother Isaak (also a painter and the father of Jacob van Ruisdael), Salomon entered the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1628. His first dated pictures are from 1627. He spent his whole life in Haarlem, where he was head of the guild in 1648.
Ruysdael’s early works—winter scenes—continue the tradition of Esaias van de Velde, and his early landscapes are based on the colour schemes and compositions of Pieter Molijn. It has been suggested that he may have studied with either or both painters. At least by 1628 he is mentioned as a landscape painter of Haarlem. Unlike certain other landscape painters of the period, his nephew among them, Ruysdael generally painted actual landscapes of such places as Arnhem, Dordrecht, and Utrecht, sometimes combining motifs from different places in one picture. His early river landscapes of the 1630s, which are characterized by diagonal compositions of the dunes, are similar in composition and use of colour to the celebrated river scenes of his contemporary Jan van Goyen.
Experts agree that Ruysdael’s most powerful work was done after 1645. His command of the landscape elements—great trees anchoring one side of the composition, distant views that draw the eye, and a vast expanse of sky and clouds—seems more assured, and his use of colour for effect more brilliant. From that point Ruysdael became increasingly interested in light effects and decorative elements in his compositions. Critics have speculated that his change of style was in part due to the influence of several Dutch painters, such as Jan Both, who were returning to Holland from study in Italy. Many of Ruysdael’s later works are monumental in format and design, and they exhibit a masterly rendering of atmospheric effects. Though his landscapes are most characteristic of his work, between 1659 and 1662 Ruysdael also painted a number of excellent still lifes of game. His son Jacob Salomonszoon (1635–81) was also a landscape artist.
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e9830bc0712788042cc8aac33f3f94bc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salvador-de-Madariaga-y-Rojo | Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo | Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo, (born July 23, 1886, La Coruña, Spain—died Dec. 14, 1978, Locarno, Switz.), Spanish writer, diplomat, and historian, noted for his service at the League of Nations and for his prolific writing in English, German, and French, as well as Spanish.
The son of a Spanish army officer, Madariaga was trained at his father’s insistence as an engineer in Paris but abandoned his career to become a journalist. In 1921 he joined the Secretariat of the League of Nations at Geneva as a press member and the following year was appointed head of its disarmament section. From 1928 to 1931 he was professor of Spanish studies at the University of Oxford. After the Spanish monarchy fell in 1931, the Spanish republic appointed him ambassador to the United States (1931) and then to France (1932–34), and he was Spain’s permanent delegate to the League of Nations from 1931 to 1936. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, Madariaga—“equally distant from both sides,” as he wrote at the time—resigned and left for England. He became a vocal opponent of the Francisco Franco regime and did not return to Spain until April 1976, following Franco’s death the previous November.
Among Madariaga’s most notable essays are Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards (1928), a study of national psychology; Guía del lector del Quijote (1926; Don Quixote), an analysis of Cervantes’ classic; and Spain (1942), a historical essay. He also published books on various periods in Latin-American history, among them Cuadro histórico de las Indias, 2 vol. (1945; The Rise and Fall of the Spanish American Empire), and the trilogy Christopher Columbus (1939), Hernán Cortés (1941), and Simón Bolívar (1949), the last being the object of violent criticism for its iconoclasm. Madariaga’s political writings expound his philosophy of individual liberty and the solidarity of mankind.
In addition to the essay, Madariaga cultivated other literary genres—poetry, drama, and narrative prose. His novels are based upon philosophical, political, and religious themes. Among his fictional works are El corazón de piedra verde (1942; The Heart of Jade) and Guerra en la sangre (1957; War in the Blood), novels based on Latin-American history.
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7eb8a18bb1ac7ba29aeb7c1996f780f4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salvatore-Vigano | Salvatore Viganò | Salvatore Viganò
Salvatore Viganò, (born March 25, 1769, Naples, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]—died Aug. 10, 1821, Milan, Austrian Habsburg domain [Italy]), Italian dancer and choreographer whose innovations included the synthesis of dance and pantomime, which he called “coreodramma,” in highly dramatic ballets based on historical and mythological themes and Shakespearean plays.
Viganò was born of a family of dancers and was the nephew of the composer Luigi Boccherini. He studied literature and music as well as dance. While performing in Madrid he married the Austrian dancer Maria Medina and met the choreographer Jean Dauberval (a pupil and protégé of Jean-Georges Noverre), whom he joined in France and England. Viganò then danced and choreographed in Italy and central Europe, principally Vienna (1793–95 and 1799–1803). In 1811 he went to Milan to become ballet master at La Scala, Italy’s principal opera and ballet theatre. Under his influence, ballet in Italy flourished.
In contrast to many earlier choreographers, Viganò tried to select music for his ballets that was appropriate to their themes and dance movements. In Gli strelizzi (1809) and subsequent ballets, he further developed Noverre’s dance-drama approach by combining conventional dance patterns with pantomime, whereas Noverre had stopped at the alternation of such sequences. Among Viganò’s more than 40 ballets were Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (1801; The Creatures of Prometheus), composed especially for him by Beethoven; Gli strelizzi, based on an insurrection in the late 17th century among the guards (streltsy) of the Russian tsar Peter the Great; Otello (1818); and I titani (1819; “The Titans”), which explored man’s greed for gold.
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44616daddfb08c1646a7d5fd05965c10 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Brownback | Sam Brownback | Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback, in full Samuel Dale Brownback, (born September 12, 1956, Garnett, Kansas, U.S.), American Republican politician, who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1995–96) and of the U.S. Senate (1996–2011) before becoming governor of Kansas (2011–18). He later served as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom (2018– ) in the administration of Pres. Donald Trump.
Brownback was raised on his family’s farm near Parker, Kansas, and was the state president of the Future Farmers of America in high school, where his passion for politics began. He graduated from Kansas State University (where he was student body president) in 1978 and received a law degree from the University of Kansas in 1982. After graduating from law school, Brownback worked as an attorney in Manhattan, Kansas, for four years before turning to public service. He was appointed secretary of the state board of agriculture in 1986, a position he held until 1993, and he was a White House fellow in 1990. In 1994 Brownback was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as part of the landslide that gave the Republicans a majority. After Kansas Sen. Bob Dole resigned his position to campaign for the presidency in 1996, Brownback won a special election to fill the vacant Senate seat by running on a strongly conservative platform. He was easily reelected in 1998 and 2004, in the latter election garnering the highest number of votes for any office in Kansas history.
During his tenure as senator, Brownback focused primarily on domestic social issues and international relations. He was a member of the Senate’s appropriations and judiciary committees and served on the Joint Economic Committee and on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission). His political philosophy is outlined in his From Power to Purpose: A Remarkable Journey of Faith and Compassion (2007).
In his presidential campaign, Brownback supported tax reform and opposed abortion rights, but his initial support for a stalled immigration-reform bill cost him the support of some social conservatives. In October 2007 he withdrew from the race because of campaign fund-raising shortfalls. The following year Brownback announced that he would not run for reelection to the Senate, and he subsequently launched a bid to become governor of Kansas. He won the Republican primary and went on to an easy victory in the November 2010 gubernatorial election. Brownback was sworn in as governor in January 2011.
Once in office, Brownback pursued a number of conservative social policies, notably limiting access to abortion. However, his main focus was on tax cuts, and he oversaw what were reportedly the largest such cuts in the state’s history. However, they failed to stimulate the economy and instead created large budget shortfalls. Brownback’s popularity subsequently waned, and in 2014 he only narrowly won reelection. In 2017 the Republican-controlled state legislature overrode his veto and rolled back some of his cuts. Later that year President Trump nominated Brownback as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. In January 2018 the Senate voted on Brownback’s nomination, and he was confirmed after Vice Pres. Mike Pence broke the 49–49 tie. Shortly thereafter Brownback resigned as governor.
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684d3fb1dc9e0d1af2d5080ad7227d87 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Donaldson | Sam Donaldson | Sam Donaldson
Sam Donaldson, in full Samuel Andrew Donaldson, (born March 11, 1934, El Paso, Texas, U.S.), American television journalist best known for his long and distinguished career at ABC (the American Broadcasting Company), where he covered stories and conducted investigations of national and international interest.
Donaldson was raised on his family’s farm in Chamberino, N.M. He earned a B.A. in telecommunications at Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) and later worked for local radio and television stations. After a year of graduate school and a stint in the military, he returned to broadcasting in 1959, first as a television announcer and then as a newscaster for an NBC (National Broadcasting Company) affiliate in Washington, D.C. In 1967 he joined ABC, and in 1977 he became the network’s chief White House correspondent, a position he held until 1988 and again in 1998–99. His booming voice and his persistent questions earned him public attention and, often, presidential ire.
In the 1980s Donaldson’s role at ABC expanded dramatically, a trend that would continue throughout his career. He served as anchor for World News Sunday and was a regular panelist on the news discussion program This Week with David Brinkley. From 1989 to 1999 he served as cohost of Primetime Live. During his second stint as ABC’s chief White House correspondent, he was also the anchor of the investigative program 20/20. From 1999 to 2001 Donaldson hosted a live Webcast (a broadcast over the World Wide Web), and from 2001 to 2004 he anchored a daily news program, The Sam Donaldson Show–Live in America, for ABC News Radio. In 2009 Donaldson retired from full-time work.
Donaldson’s reporting garnered numerous accolades, including a number of Emmy Awards and George Foster Peabody Awards. His career is chronicled in his memoir Hold On, Mr. President (1987).
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be32029b9b8919eb23091c1515b8ffb9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Nunn | Sam Nunn | Sam Nunn
Sam Nunn, in full Samuel Augustus Nunn, (born September 8, 1938, Macon, Georgia, U.S.), U.S. senator from Georgia (1972–97) and Democratic Party politician noted for his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and his authorship of several important pieces of legislation.
Nunn, whose father was a lawyer and farmer, was the grandnephew of longtime U.S. Rep. Carl Vinson of Georgia. He was raised in the small town of Perry, in central Georgia. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) from 1956 to 1959 and then transferred to Emory University, from which he graduated in 1961. He went on to earn a law degree there the following year. While an undergraduate, Nunn served two years in the U.S. Coast Guard, and he served in the Coast Guard Reserve from 1960 to 1968. After admission to the bar in 1962, he worked for the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives but soon had to return to his hometown of Perry to help on the family farm.
Nunn won election to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1968. Four years later he entered the U.S. Senate in a special election to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Sen. Richard Russell. His most noteworthy legislative achievements include drafting the 1986 Department of Defense Reorganization Act and, with Sen. Richard Lugar, the 1991 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. The former resulted in the most-significant defense reorganization since the National Security Act of 1947, and the latter provided incentives for Russia and the former Soviet republics to destroy excess nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. For their pioneering legislation, Senators Nunn and Lugar were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 2000 and 2001. In addition to the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Nunn served on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and on the Intelligence and Small Business committees.
Nunn was a notable dissenter in the 1991 Senate vote on military action against Ṣaddām Ḥussein’s forces in Kuwait. His vote against the action proved to be a factor in the demise of his otherwise promising run for the White House on the 1992 Democratic ticket. After the United States emerged victorious from Operation Desert Storm, Nunn withdrew from the presidential race because of the unpopularity of his antiwar stance. He chose not to run for reelection in 1996.
Following his retirement from politics, Nunn practiced law in Atlanta and served on corporate boards. In addition, in 2001 he cofounded the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization established to reduce the threat posed to global security by weapons of mass destruction. Nunn was also a distinguished professor at the school of international affairs at Georgia Tech that bore his name.
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a5f8878e34079455ea945cd391da4e5f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Phillips-American-record-producer | Sam Phillips | Sam Phillips
…a few weeks when producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records, a local blues label, responded to his audition tape with a phone call. Several weeks worth of recording sessions ensued with a band consisting of Presley, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black. Their repertoire consisted of the kind of…
…biographer Peter Guralnick, Presley and Sam Phillips, Sun’s owner, knew exactly what they were doing when they blended country style, white pop singing, and African American rhythm and blues. What was new was the mixture, not the act of mixing.
…his early recordings with producer Sam Phillips, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black for in Memphis were less about any one style than about a feeling. For decades African Americans had used the term rock and roll as a euphemism for sex, and Presley’s music oozed sexuality. Presley was…
Former radio engineer Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service at 706 Union Avenue in 1950. Among his first customers were out-of-town rhythm-and-blues labels Modern (based in Los Angeles) and Chess (based in Chicago), who hired Phillips to find and record local artists on their behalf. Phillips was…
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28ebe6979e95648f22584e4dfb9d9a9f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Wood | Sam Wood | Sam Wood
Sam Wood, byname of Samuel Grosvenor Wood, (born July 10, 1883, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died September 22, 1949, Los Angeles, California), American filmmaker who was one of Hollywood’s leading directors in the 1930 and ’40s, during which time he made such classics as A Night at the Opera (1935), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), and The Pride of the Yankees (1942).
After trying his hand as a gold prospector in Nevada and a real-estate agent in California, Wood turned to acting; his film credits included Who Knows? (1917). However, he found himself uncomfortable in front of the camera and was soon working as an assistant director to Cecil B. DeMille. Wood was given a chance to make features for Paramount in 1920, a year in which he directed eight films, the first of which was Double Speed. One of the stars he worked with most frequently early in his career was Gloria Swanson. He directed her in several silent melodramas, including Under the Lash (1921), Beyond the Rocks (1922), My American Wife (1922), and Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1923).
After moving to MGM in 1927, Wood was assigned to The Fair Co-Ed (1927), a comedy starring Marion Davies; The Latest from Paris (1928) with Norma Shearer; and Telling the World (1928), among other projects. In 1929 Wood directed his first all-sound film, So This Is College, with Robert Montgomery. It was largely forgotten, as were such other early talkies as Way for a Sailor (with John Gilbert), They Learned About Women (codirected with Jack Conway), and The Girl Said No, with William Haines and Marie Dressler (all 1930). More memorable was Paid (1930), a popular Joan Crawford melodrama, in which the actress played a store clerk who is wrongly incarcerated and vows revenge. In 1931 Wood directed (uncredited) The Man in Possession, a comedy with Montgomery, and New Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford (1931), which featured Haines, a Wood favourite; the latter also starred Jimmy Durante.
Wood was uncredited on several subsequent projects, including Huddle (1932), a football drama starring Ramon Novarro; Prosperity (1932), the ninth and last teaming of popular comedians Dressler and Polly Moran; and Hold Your Man (1933), a calculated showcase for the charismatic pair of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Wood’s other credits from 1933 were The Barbarian, a romantic drama with Myrna Loy and Novarro, and Christopher Bean, an adaptation of a Sidney Howard play that proved to be Dressler’s last film. Loy returned for Stamboul Quest (1934), which was inspired by the real-life German spy known as Fräulein Doktor. More successful was Let ’Em Have It (1935), a suspenseful crime drama with Richard Arlen as an FBI agent on the trail of a scar-faced criminal (Bruce Cabot).
In 1935 Wood had his first major hit with A Night at the Opera; Edmund Goulding directed some scenes, but his work was uncredited. It was the Marx Brothers’ first film for MGM, and many consider it their best movie. The madcap comedy featured the comedians’ anarchic humour, and the numerous memorable scenes included a sequence in which a mob of passengers squeeze into a small cabin on a cruise ship. Whipsaw (1935) was another Loy vehicle, this time offering her as a jewel thief who is pursued by a persistent FBI agent (Spencer Tracy). The Unguarded Hour (1936) was a complicated but stagy mystery starring Franchot Tone and Loretta Young.
In 1937 Wood reteamed with the Marx Brothers on A Day at the Races. Although not as critically acclaimed as their earlier effort, the comedy was a huge box-office hit. Part of its success was attributed to the fact that the material had been polished through numerous live public performances prior to filming (although the brothers had also rehearsed their material before making A Night at the Opera). Navy Blue and Gold (1937), with Robert Young and James Stewart as cadets at the U.S. Naval Academy, was formulaic, but Madame X (1937) was a fine adaptation of the Alexandre Bisson play, with Gladys George as the mother who sacrifices her own welfare to ensure the success of her son (John Beal). Woods then made the family drama Lord Jeff (1938), a showcase for MGM’s young stars Mickey Rooney and Freddie Bartholomew. The horse-racing drama Stablemates (1938) featured Rooney as a jockey and Wallace Beery as an alcoholic veterinarian.
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60a5132f038036fa8220d8e8e8229261 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samak-Sundaravej | Samak Sundaravej | Samak Sundaravej
Samak Sundaravej, (born June 13, 1935, Bangkok, Thai.—died Nov. 24, 2009, Bangkok), Thai journalist and politician who served as prime minister of Thailand for several months (January–September) in 2008. He was the first Thai prime minister to be democratically elected since the ousting of Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister in a September 2006 military coup.
Samak grew up in Bangkok, studied law in the city at Thammasat University, and worked for a number of years as a newspaper columnist before entering politics. Originally a member of the Democrat Party, he was elected to the parliament in 1973. He stirred controversy three years later by spearheading a radio campaign against pro-democracy activists at Thammasat University and voicing support for the October 1976 crackdown that claimed the lives of dozens of students. After serving as interior minister (1976–77), Samak founded his own political party, the Prachakorn Thai Party, which he led from 1979 to 2000.
In 1992, after a military junta had toppled the Thai government, Samak was appointed deputy prime minister. In May of that year he again conspicuously supported a bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators by the Thai army. Samak later served with Thaksin in the cabinet of Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa. In 2000 Samak scored a resounding victory in the Bangkok mayoral race, but his four-year term in office ended amid allegations of corruption. He went on to host political talk shows as well as a popular cooking show on television, returning to politics in 2006 with a successful run for the Senate, where he served until Thaksin’s overthrow. After a military-appointed tribunal dissolved Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party and many top-ranking TRT members were banned from participating in politics, Samak helped establish the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) in August 2007 and became leader of the party. Under Samak’s leadership, the PPP achieved a comfortable plurality win in Thailand’s general election the following December and subsequently was able to form a multiparty governing coalition.
On Jan. 28, 2008, the parliament of Thailand elected Samak as the country’s new prime minister. King Bhumibol Adulyadej ratified the election the following day. One month after Samak assumed the prime ministership, Thaksin returned to Thailand from exile in Britain. How much power Thaksin would wield in Samak’s government was the subject of much speculation. Critics alleged that Thaksin would control the government from behind the scenes. After Samak signaled his intention to amend Thailand’s postcoup constitution, the opposition People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) launched a mass protest against him, describing the move as an attempt to lay the groundwork for a return to power by Thaksin. Samak resisted the PAD’s calls for his resignation, but in early September he was forced to step down after the Constitutional Court found him guilty of having illegally accepted payment for TV cooking show appearances that he had made while serving as prime minister. Samak also lost a defamation suit later that month. A bid by some of Samak’s supporters in the PPP to renominate him eventually died out. Amid renewed protests by the opposition, the PPP named Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, as Samak’s successor. Somchai was soon ousted, however, and the PPP was dissolved by the Constitutional Court.
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bf17cb592f4d7a79b48bab6d6132f0bc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sammy-Lee | Sammy Lee | Sammy Lee
Sammy Lee, original name Samuel Rhee, (born August 1, 1920, Fresno, California, U.S.—died December 2, 2016, Newport Beach, California), American diver, the first Asian American man to win an Olympic gold medal and the first diver to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in the platform event.
While growing up, Lee, the son of Korean immigrants, faced racial prejudice and was permitted to use his community’s public pool only one day a week—the day that all nonwhite children could swim before the pool was drained and cleaned. As a student at Occidental College (Los Angeles), Lee won national AAU championships in both the 3-metre springboard and 10-metre platform events in 1942. Standing only 5 feet 1 inch (155 cm) tall, Lee utilized his short stature in his dives, tucking tighter and turning faster than his opponents.
After graduating from Occidental in 1943, Lee entered the University of Southern California Medical School and briefly retired from diving. However, he returned to competition in 1946 and again won the national AAU championship in the platform event. After earning an M.D. degree in 1947, Lee joined the U.S. Army, serving in the medical corps during the Korean War.
Lee continued diving, and at the 1948 Olympic Games in London he won a bronze medal in springboard and performed an astonishing three and a half forward somersaults to win the platform event. Although he rarely competed over the following four years, he qualified for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki and once again took gold in the platform event. The following year Lee retired from competitive diving.
Lee subsequently focused on his medical career, practicing as an ear, nose, and throat specialist. However, he remained involved in diving, coaching the 1960 U.S. Olympic team and the 1964 Japanese and Korean squads. He also trained gold medalists Bob Webster and Greg Louganis. The recipient of numerous honours, Lee was awarded the 1953 James E. Sullivan Award for outstanding U.S. amateur athlete. In addition, he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame (1968) and into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame (1990). His book, Diving, was published in 1979.
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3900991bbe3ab983e042a2e7c8059ae6 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samory | Samory | Samory
Samory, in full Samory Touré, (born c. 1830, near Sarranko, Upper Guinea [now in Guinea]—died June 2, 1900, Gabon, French Congo [now Gabon]), Muslim reformer and military leader who founded a powerful kingdom in West Africa and resisted French colonial expansion in the late 19th century.
In 1868 Samory, a member of the Mande group, proclaimed himself a religious chief and led a band of warriors in establishing a powerful chiefdom in the Kankan region of Guinea. A gifted commander and administrator, he expanded his rule until at its height in the early 1880s it extended from the Upper Volta region in the west to the Fouta Djallon in the east.
Samory opposed French ambitions to build an empire in West Africa. He first fought the French in 1883, when they occupied Bamako on the Niger River. After the French carried out a successful offensive in 1886, Samory accepted their protection with the Niger as his frontier. After failing to expand to the east at the expense of Tieba, the king of Sikasso (in present-day southern Mali), he renewed his war with the French in 1891. When his forces were ejected from the Sudan by a military column, he tried to establish his kingdom in the upper Côte d’Ivoire colony, where he pillaged Kong (1895) and Bondoukou (1898). Pursued by French troops, Samory was captured on the upper reaches of the Cavally River on September 29, 1898. He died in exile.
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15a471aeee050be2bfa14d4e792a8ab4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Abraham-Goudsmit | Samuel Abraham Goudsmit | Samuel Abraham Goudsmit
Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, (born July 11, 1902, The Hague—died Dec. 4, 1978, Reno, Nev., U.S.), Dutch-born U.S. physicist who, with George E. Uhlenbeck (q.v.), a fellow graduate student at the University of Leiden, Neth., formulated (1925) the concept of electron spin, leading to major changes in atomic theory and quantum mechanics. Of this work Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobelist in physics, remarked, “Physics must be forever in debt to those two men for discovering the spin.” Later it was recognized that spin is a fundamental property of neutrons, protons, and other elementary particles.
A faculty member of the University of Michigan (1927–46) and Northwestern University, Ill. (1946–48), Goudsmit worked on radar research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (1941–44), and was head of Alsos, a secret mission that followed the advancing Allied forces in Europe to determine the progress of Germany’s atomic bomb project.
From 1948 to 1970 Goudsmit was a member of the staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, N.Y., and then joined the University of Reno, Nevada. His works include The Structure of Line Spectra, with Linus Pauling (1930); Atomic Energy States, with Robert F. Bacher (1932); Alsos (1947); and Time, with Robert Claiborne (1966).
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