Where religious figures and saints grew up and lived

Albert Schweitzer1913–1965

📍 Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, Lambaréné, Gabon

I arrived in Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa — what is now Gabon — in 1913, to build a hospital in the jungle. I had given up careers in philosophy, theology and music to study…

Blessed Damien of Molokai1873–1889

📍 Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii, USA

I was born Jozef De Veuster in Belgium in 1840 and I arrived on the island of Molokai in Hawaii in 1873, sent to serve the colony of people with leprosy — Hansen's disease — who had been…

C.S. Lewis1930–1963

📍 The Kilns, Lewis Close, Headington Quarry, Oxford OX3 8JD, UK

Warnie and I pooled our inheritance in 1930 to buy The Kilns, named after the old brick kilns on the land, at Headington Quarry on the edge of Oxford. It came with eight acres of woodland…

Dalai Lama1960–2026

📍 Tsuglagkhang Complex, Temple Road, McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh 176219, India

Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, has lived in McLeod Ganj, above Dharamsala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, since 1960, the year after he fled Tibet following the failed…

David Livingstone1813–1836

📍 David Livingstone Birthplace, 165 Station Road, Blantyre G72 9BY, UK

I was born in March 1813 in Shuttle Row, a tenement block built for workers at the Blantyre cotton mills on the River Clyde, south-east of Glasgow. Twenty-four families lived in the…

Desmond Tutu1960–1986

📍 Vilakazi Street, Orlando West, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa

I grew up in Klerksdorp in the western Transvaal, but it was Soweto — specifically the small house on Vilakazi Street in Orlando West where I lived with Leah and our children — that was my…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer1935–1943

📍 Marienburger Allee 43, 14055 Berlin, Germany

I grew up in a large, cultured family in Berlin; my father was one of Germany's leading psychiatrists and my mother educated us at home in our early years. We were eight children, with…

Emanuel Swedenborg1688–1772

📍 Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden

I was born Emanuel Swedenborg on the 29th of January 1688 in Stockholm, the son of Jesper Swedenborg, a Lutheran bishop. I was a scientist, engineer, and polymath for the first half of my…

Guru Nanak1469–1539

📍 Gurdwara Janam Asthan, GT Road, Nankana Sahib, Punjab 39100, Pakistan

I was born Nanak on the 15th of April 1469 in Nankana Sahib in the Punjab, now Pakistan. I grew up in a Hindu family in a region where Hinduism and Islam coexisted and sometimes conflicted…

Hildegard von Bingen1098–1179

📍 Bermersheim vor der Höhe, 55234 Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

I was born around 1098 in Bermersheim in the Rhineland, the tenth child of a noble family who offered me to the church as a tithe. I was given as a companion to the anchoress Jutta von…

Ignatius of Loyola1491–1556

📍 Santuario de Loyola, Jauregi Kalea 15, 20730 Azpeitia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

I was born Íñigo López de Loyola around 1491 at Loyola Castle in the Basque Country, a vain and ambitious young nobleman fond of military adventure. A French cannonball shattered my leg at…

Jesus of Nazareth

📍 Nazareth, Galilee, Israel

I grew up in Nazareth, in the workshop and home of my father Joseph. The smell of fresh timber and sawdust was the smell of my childhood — a craftsman's home, modest and honest, with…

Joan of Arc1412–1431

📍 2 Rue de la Basilique, 88630 Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, France

I was born in Domremy, a small village on the Meuse river in the duchy of Bar, in a stone farmhouse that still stands. I grew up spinning wool and tending cattle, a girl of the fields and…

John Wesley1703–1791

📍 The Old Rectory, 1 Rectory Lane, Epworth, Doncaster DN9 1HU, England

I was born John Wesley on the 17th of June 1703 in Epworth, Lincolnshire, the fifteenth of nineteen children of Samuel Wesley, the rector of Epworth, and Susanna Wesley. My mother educated…

John Wycliffe1320–1384

📍 Hipswell, Richmond, North Yorkshire DL9 4BD, England

I was born around 1320 at Hipswell in North Yorkshire and became a theologian at Oxford who challenged the wealth and authority of the medieval church a century before Luther. I argued that…

Laozi

📍 Luyi, Henan, China

I was born Li Er — known to the world as Laozi, meaning Old Master — in the state of Chu in what is now Henan province, China, traditionally dated to around 601 BC though my historicity is…

Martin Luther1483–1546

📍 Lutherstraße 15, 06295 Lutherstadt Eisleben, Germany

I was born Martin Luther on the 10th of November 1483 in Eisleben, Saxony, the son of Hans Luther, a copper miner who had risen to become a mine owner. My father intended me for a legal…

Maximilian Kolbe1894–1941

📍 Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oswiecim, Poland

I was a Polish Franciscan friar who had established a community at Niepokalanów near Warsaw and built it into one of the largest Catholic monasteries in the world, with its own radio…

Mother Teresa1948–1997

📍 Missionaries of Charity, 54A Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Road, Kolkata, India

I was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, in a house where my mother fed anyone who came to the door — no questions asked. I left for Calcutta at eighteen and never went back. The…

Oscar Romero1917–1980

📍 Hospital Divina Providencia, Calle La Reforma, San Salvador, El Salvador

I was born in 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador, and ordained as a Catholic priest in 1942. For most of my career I was a conservative parish priest. My conversion to the theology of the…

Pope Francis1936–1958

📍 Membrillar 531, Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina

I was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants, Mario and Regina, and I grew up at 531 Membrillar Street in Flores, a working-class barrio of Buenos Aires…

Pope John Paul II1920–1938

📍 ul. Kościelna 7, 34-100 Wadowice, Poland

I was Karol Wojtyła, born in May 1920 in a small first-floor apartment of two rooms and a kitchen at 7 Kościelna Street in Wadowice, beside the parish church; from our window I could see…

Pope Leo XIV2015–2023

📍 Chiclayo, Lambayeque, Peru

Robert Francis Prevost grew up in Dolton, a working-class suburb on Chicago's South Side, the youngest of three brothers in a devout family. He served as an altar boy and, his brothers…

Rabia al-Adawiyya

📍 Basra, Iraq

I was born Rabia al-Adawiyya around 717 AD in Basra, Iraq, into a poor family. According to tradition I was the fourth daughter — Rabia means fourth in Arabic. My parents died when I was…

Saint Augustine354–430

📍 Thagaste (now Souk Ahras), Algeria

I was born Aurelius Augustinus around 354 AD in Thagaste in Roman North Africa — now Souk Ahras in Algeria. My mother Monica was devoutly Christian; my father Patricius was a pagan. I was…

Saint Francis of Assisi

📍 Piazza del Comune, 06081 Assisi PG, Umbria, Italy

I was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone around 1181 in Assisi, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. I grew up enjoying the pleasures that wealth provided until illness, imprisonment…

Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)

📍 Sacred Garden, Lumbini, Rupandehi District 32900, Nepal

I was born Siddhartha Gautama around 563 BC in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, the son of a king of the Shakya clan. My mother died a week after my birth. I grew up sheltered from suffering…

Táhirih1817–1852

📍 Qazvin, Qazvin Province, Iran

I was born Fatemeh Zarrin Taj Baraghani around 1817 in Qazvin, Iran, into a family of prominent Shia Muslim clerics. I became a poet and theologian of remarkable ability and one of the…

Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana1918–1939

📍 Ōrākeinui homestead, Rātana Pā, Rangitīkei, Manawatū-Whanganui, New Zealand

I was a farmer here at Ōrākeinui, my family's homestead, when on the eighth of November 1918 I stood on my own veranda and watched a cloud come in off the Tasman Sea toward the house. It…

Te Whiti-o-Rongomai1830–1907

📍 Parihaka, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ko au ko Te Whiti-o-Rongomai. I was born around 1830 at Parihaka, on the Taranaki coast beneath the mountain, and I spent my life building a community that answered violence with peace…

Teresa of Ávila1515–1582

📍 Avila, Castile and Leon, Spain

I was born Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada on the 28th of March 1515 in Ávila, a walled city on the Castilian plateau, the daughter of a converso merchant and a devout mother who died when I was…

Thomas Aquinas

📍 Roccasecca, 03038 Frosinone, Lazio, Italy

I was born Tommaso d'Aquino around 1225 at Roccasecca castle in the Kingdom of Sicily, the son of a count. My family intended me for Benedictine monasticism at the prestigious Monte…

Thomas Merton1941–1968

📍 Abbey of Gethsemani, 3642 Monks Road, Trappist, KY 40051, USA

I was born Thomas Merton on the 31st of January 1915 in Prades, France, the son of two artists. My mother died when I was six. My father died when I was fifteen. I was educated at Cambridge…

Tohu Kākahi1828–1907

📍 Parihaka, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ko au ko Tohu Kākahi. I was born around 1828 of Te Ātiawa descent, and I stood alongside Te Whiti-o-Rongomai at Parihaka as the co-leader of a movement that chose peace as its weapon. We…