Mother Teresa Biography

Religious Figure / Humanitarian

Name at birth: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

Mother Teresa grew famous for humbly ministering to lepers, the homeless and the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. In 1928 Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Lareto, a Catholic order that did charity work in India. She took the name Sister Teresa and for 17 years taught school in the country. In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a new order devoted to helping the sick and poor; the order grew to include branches in more than 100 cities around the world, and Mother Teresa became a worldwide symbol of charity, meeting with Princess Diana and many other public figures. In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, and in 1985 she was awarded the Medal of Freedom from the United States.

Extra credit: She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 October 2003, placing her one step from sainthood in the Catholic faith; after beatification she became known as the Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata... Though her parents were ethnic Albanians, Mother Teresa was born in what is now Macedonia and what was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Some sources give her date of birth as August 26th, not August 27th.

Related Catholic saints include St. Augustine, St. Catherine of Siena and Bernadette of Lourdes.

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