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Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/1
Justus (occasionally Iustus) (died on 10 November between 627 and 631) was the fourth
Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope
Gregory the Great, on a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601. Justus became the first
Bishop of Rochester in 604, and attended a church council in Paris in 614. Following the death of King
Æthelberht of Kent in 616, Justus was forced to flee to
Gaul, but was reinstated in his diocese the following year. In 624 Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury, overseeing the despatch of missionaries to
Northumbria. After his death he was revered as a saint, and had a shrine in
St Augustine's Abbey,
Canterbury.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/2
Huldrych Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a leader of the
Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging
Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the
Swiss mercenary system, he attended the
University of Vienna and the
University of Basel, a scholarly centre of
humanism. He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in
Glarus and later in
Einsiedeln where he was influenced by the writings of
Erasmus.
In 1518, Zwingli became the pastor of the
Grossmünster in
Zurich where he began to preach ideas on reforming the
Catholic Church. In his first public controversy in 1522, he attacked the
custom of fasting during
Lent. In his publications, he noted corruption in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, promoted clerical marriage, and attacked the use of
images in places of worship. In 1525, Zwingli introduced a new
communion
liturgy to replace the
mass. Zwingli also clashed with the
Anabaptists, which resulted in their persecution.
The Reformation spread to other parts of the
Swiss Confederation, but several
cantons resisted, preferring to remain
Catholic. Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Confederation along religious lines. In 1529, a war between the two sides was averted at the last moment. Meanwhile, Zwingli’s ideas came to the attention of
Martin Luther and other reformers. They met at the
Marburg Colloquy and although they agreed on many points of doctrine, they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the
presence of Christ in the
eucharist. In 1531 Zwingli’s alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons. The cantons responded with an attack at a moment when Zurich was badly prepared. Zwingli was killed in battle at the age of 47. His legacy lives on in the
confessions, liturgy, and church orders of the
Reformed churches of today.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/3
Gregory of Nazianzus was a
4th century
Christian
bishop of
Constantinople. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the
patristic age. As a classically trained speaker and
philosopher he infused
Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of
Byzantine theologians and church officials. Gregory made a significant impact on the shape of
Trinitarian
theology among both
Greek-speaking and
Latin-speaking theologians, and he is remembered as the "Trinitarian Theologian". Much of his theological work continues to influence modern theologians, especially in regard to the relationship among the three persons of the Trinity. Along with two brothers,
Basil the Great and
Gregory of Nyssa, he is known as one of the
Cappadocian Fathers. Gregory is honored as a
saint in both
Eastern and
Western Christianity. In the
Roman Catholic Church he is among the
Doctors of the Church; in
Eastern Orthodoxy and the
Eastern Catholic Churches he is revered as one of the
Three Holy Hierarchs along with
Basil of Caesarea and
John Chrysostom.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/4
Martin Bucer (or Butzer) (11 November 1491 – 28 February 1551) was a
Protestant reformer based in
Strasbourg who influenced
Lutheran,
Calvinist, and
Anglican doctrines and practices. Bucer's efforts to reform the church in
Wissembourg resulted in his
excommunication from the
Roman Catholic Church, and he was forced to flee to Strasbourg. He acted as a mediator between the two leading reformers, Martin Luther and
Huldrych Zwingli, who differed on the doctrine of the
Eucharist. Later, Bucer sought agreement on common articles of faith such as the
Tetrapolitan Confession and the
Wittenberg Concord, working closely with
Philip Melanchthon on the latter. Although his ministry did not lead to the formation of a new denomination, many Protestant denominations have claimed him as one of their own. He is remembered as an early pioneer of
ecumenism.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/5
Ælfheah (954 – 19 April 1012;
Old English: Ælfhēah, "elf-high"), officially remembered by the name Alphege within the Church, and sometimes called Alfege, was an
Anglo-Saxon
Bishop of Winchester, later
Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an
anchorite before being elected abbot of
Bath Abbey. His perceived piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate, and eventually to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of
St Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by
Viking raiders in 1011 and killed by them the following year, after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was
canonized as a saint in 1078. Saint
Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to him just before his own slaying in Canterbury Cathedral.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/6
Nigel (c. 1100 – 1169) (sometimes Nigel Poor or
Nigel of Ely) was an Anglo-Norman
bishop of Ely. He came from an ecclesiastical family; his uncle
Roger of Salisbury was a bishop and government minister for King
Henry I, and other relatives also held offices in the English Church and government. Nigel owed his advancement to his uncle, as did Nigel's probable brother
Alexander, who like Nigel was advanced to episcopal status. Nigel was educated on the continent before becoming a royal administrator. He served as
Treasurer of England under King
Henry I of England, before being appointed to the
see, or bishopric, of Ely in 1133. Following the accession of Henry I's successor, King
Stephen, Nigel remained as treasurer only briefly before his family was ousted from political office by the new king. Nigel rebelled and deserted to Stephen's rival
Matilda, but eventually reconciled with Stephen. On the king's death, Nigel was returned to the treasurership by the new king,
Henry II. Nigel's second tenure as treasurer saw him return the administration to the practices of Henry I. Most historians, then and now, have felt that Nigel's administrative abilities were excellent; he is considered to have been more talented as an administrator than as a religious figure.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/7
Clement (died 1258) was a 13th-century
Dominican
friar who was the first member of the Dominican Order in
Britain and
Ireland to become a
bishop. In 1233, he was selected to lead the ailing
diocese of Dunblane in
Scotland, and faced a struggle to bring the
bishopric of Dunblane (or "bishopric of
Strathearn") to financial viability. This involved many negotiations with the powerful religious institutions and secular authorities which had acquired control of the revenue that would normally have been the entitlement of Clement's bishopric. The negotiations proved difficult, forcing Clement to visit the
papal
court in
Rome. While not achieving all of his aims, Clement succeeded in saving the bishopric from relocation to
Inchaffray Abbey. He also regained enough revenue to begin work on the new
Dunblane Cathedral.
He faced a similar challenge with the impoverished
bishopric of Argyll in the 1240s. He was given the job of restoring the viability of the
diocese and installing a new bishop; this involved forming a close relationship with King
Alexander II of Scotland. Clement was with the king during his campaign in
Argyll in 1249 and was at his side when he died during this campaign. In 1250 Clement had been able to install a new bishop in Argyll and had become one of the Guardians appointed to govern Scotland during the
minority of King
Alexander III. By 1250 he had established a reputation as one of the most active Dominican reformers in
Britain. Clement helped to elevate
Edmund of Abingdon and
Queen Margaret to sainthood. After his death, he received
veneration as a
saint himself, although he was never formally
canonised. (
Full article...)
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/8
Peter Jones (missionary) (January 1, 1802 – June 29, 1856) was an
Ojibwa
Methodist
minister,
translator,
chief and author from
Burlington Heights,
Upper Canada. His
Ojibwa name was Kahkewāquonāby (Gakiiwegwanebi in the
Fiero spelling), which means "[Sacred] Waving Feathers." In
Mohawk, he was called Desagondensta, meaning "he stands people on their feet." In his youth his band of
Mississaugas had been on the verge of destruction. As a preacher and a chieftain, as a role model and as a liaison to governments, his leadership helped his people survive contact with Europeans. As a bilingual and bicultural preacher, he enabled the Methodists to make significant inroads with the Mississaugas and Iroquois of Upper Canada, both by translating hymns and biblical texts in
Ojibwe and
Mohawk and by preaching to Indians who did not understand English. Jones was also a political leader. This brought him into contact with Superintendent of the Indian Department
James Givins and influential Bishop
John Strachan, with whom he arranged the funding and support of the
Credit Mission. There he lived and worked as a preacher and community leader, leading the conversion of Mississaugas to a European lifestyle of agriculture and Christianity, which enabled them to compete with the white settlers of Upper Canada. He was elected a chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit Mission in 1829 and acted as a spokesman for the band when petitioning the colonial government and its departments.
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Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/9
Joseph W. Tkach was the appointed successor of
Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the
Worldwide Church of God. Tkach became President and Pastor General of the church upon the death of Armstrong in 1986. Tkach spearheaded a major doctrinal transformation of the Worldwide Church of God, abandoning Armstrong's unconventional doctrines and bringing the church into accord with mainstream
evangelical
Christianity. His son,
Joseph Tkach Jr., continued his work and in 1997 the Worldwide Church of God became a member of the
National Association of Evangelicals.
During Tkach's tenure, the changes that he implemented stirred much controversy and significant dissent among those who continued to follow
Armstrong's theology. The dissenters labelled the changes as heresy and many left to form new church organizations. Within the mainstream Christian community, some have hailed Tkach's reforms, which brought a church from the fringe to orthodoxy, as unprecedented in the history of the Christian church.
The first major change under Tkach's tenure was the WCG's doctrine on healing. Previously the church taught that true believers were healed by faith in God and not by doctors. Tkach asked the church leadership to study the question. Once Tkach was satisfied with the results of the study, he officially softened the church's teaching on the matter, encouraging members to seek proper treatment while retaining faith in God as healer.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/10
Augustine of Canterbury (c. first third of the 6th century – 26 May 604) was a
Benedictine
monk who became the first
Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 598. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.
Augustine was the
prior of a monastery in Rome when
Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission, usually known as the
Gregorian mission, to Britain to convert the
pagan King
Æthelberht of the
Kingdom of Kent to
Christianity. Kent was probably chosen because it was near the Christian kingdoms in
Gaul and because Æthelberht had married a Christian princess,
Bertha, daughter of
Charibert I the
King of Paris who was expected to exert some influence over her husband. Before reaching Kent the missionaries had considered turning back but Gregory urged them on and, in 597, Augustine landed on the
Isle of Thanet and proceeded to Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury.
King Æthelberht converted to Christianity and allowed the missionaries to preach freely, giving them land to found a monastery outside the city walls. Augustine was consecrated bishop of the English and converted many of the king's subjects, including thousands during a mass baptism on
Christmas Day in 597. Pope Gregory sent more missionaries in 601, along with encouraging letters and gifts for the churches, although attempts to persuade the native
Celtic bishops to submit to Augustine's authority failed.
Roman Catholic bishops were established at London and Rochester in 604, and a school was founded to train
Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries. Augustine also arranged the consecration of his successor,
Laurence of Canterbury. Augustine died in 604 and was soon revered as a
saint.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/11
El Greco was a prominent
painter,
sculptor and
architect of the
Spanish Renaissance. El Greco was born in
Crete, which was at that time part of the
Republic of Venice, and at 26 travelled to
Venice to study. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in
Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of
Mannerism and of the
Venetian Renaissance. In 1577 he emigrated to
Toledo,
Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best known paintings. El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the
20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both
Expressionism and
Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers such as
Rainer Maria Rilke and
Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical
pigmentation, marrying
Byzantine traditions with those of
Western civilization.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/12
John Day was an
English
Protestant
printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of
psalms. He found fame, however, as the publisher of
John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, also known as the
Book of Martyrs, the largest and most technologically accomplished book printed in sixteenth-century England. Day rose to the top of his profession during the reign of
Edward VI (1547–1553). At this time, restrictions on publishers were relaxed, and a wave of propaganda on behalf of the
English Reformation was encouraged by the government of the
Lord Protector,
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. During the reign of the Catholic
Queen Mary I, many Protestant printers fled to the continent, but Day stayed in England and continued to print Protestant literature, which led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1554. Under
Queen Elizabeth I, Day returned to his premises at
Aldersgate in London, where he enjoyed the patronage of high-ranking officials and nobles. With their support, he published the Book of Martyrs and was awarded
monopolies for some of the most popular English books. Day, whose technical skill matched his business acumen, has been called "the master printer of the
English Reformation".
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/13
Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of
Mormonism. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the
Book of Mormon; by the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religion and religious culture that continues to the present. Smith was born in
Sharon, Vermont, but by 1817, he had moved with his family to
western New York, a site of intense religious revivalism during the
Second Great Awakening. According to Smith, he experienced a series of visions, including
one in which he saw "two personages" (presumably God the Father and Jesus Christ) and others in which
an angel directed him to a buried book of
golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the
Church of Christ, calling it a
restoration of the
early Christian church. Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints", or "
Mormons". Smith published many
revelations and other texts that his followers regard as
scripture. His
teachings include unique views about the nature of God,
cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious collectivism. His followers regard him as a prophet comparable to
Moses and
Elijah, and he is considered the founder of
several religious denominations, including
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the
Community of Christ.
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/14
Joan of Arc (
French: Jeanne d'Arc
[ʒan daʁk];
Middle French: Jehanne Darc
[ʒəˈãnə ˈdark];
c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a
patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the
siege of Orléans and her insistence on the
coronation of
Charles VII of France during the
Hundred Years' War. Claiming to be acting under divine guidance, she became a military leader who transcended gender roles and gained recognition as a savior of France.
Joan was born to a propertied peasant family at
Domrémy in northeast France. In 1428, she requested to be taken to Charles, later testifying that she was guided by visions from the
archangel Michael,
Saint Margaret, and
Saint Catherine to help him save France from English domination. Convinced of her devotion and purity, Charles sent Joan, who was about seventeen years old, to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief army. She arrived at the city in April 1429, wielding her banner and bringing hope to the demoralized French army. Nine days after her arrival, the English abandoned the siege. Joan encouraged the French to aggressively pursue the English during the
Loire Campaign, which culminated in another decisive victory at
Patay, opening the way for the French army to advance on
Reims unopposed, where Charles was crowned as the King of France with Joan at his side. These victories boosted French morale, paving the way for their final triumph in the Hundred Years' War several decades later. (
Full article...)
Portal:Christianity/Selected biography/15
Mary Helen MacKillop
RSJ,
religious name Mary of the Cross, (15 January 1842 – 8 August 1909) was an Australian religious sister of
Scottish descent who has been declared a
saint by the
Catholic Church. She was born in
Melbourne but is best known for her activities in
South Australia. Together with
Julian Tenison-Woods, she founded the
Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a
congregation of
religious sisters that established a number of schools and welfare institutions throughout Australia and New Zealand, with an emphasis on education for the rural poor.
The process to have MacKillop declared a saint began in the 1920s, and she was
beatified in January 1995 by
Pope John Paul II.
Pope Benedict XVI prayed at her tomb during his visit to
Sydney for
World Youth Day 2008 and in December 2009 approved the Catholic Church's recognition of a second miracle attributed to her
intercession. She was
canonised on 17 October 2010, during a public ceremony in
St Peter's Square at the
Vatican. She is the first Australian to be recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint. Mary MacKillop is the patron saint of the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane. (
Full article...)
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