(1910–1997), Catholic missionary in India and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Serbia (now Macedonia). In 1928 she left for India as a Catholic missionary, taking the name Teresa. At first she taught in a convent school in Calcutta, and in 1937, when she took her final vows, she became principal of the school. In 1948, however, she left this position to begin work in the vast slums of Calcutta, where she opened a school for destitute children. In 1950 she founded a sisterhood, the Missionaries of Charity, in many ways reminiscent of the much earlier Sisterhood of Charity founded by Saint Vincent de Paul in 1633. Gradually other nuns joined her, and in 1952 Mother Teresa opened the House for the Dying, an early hospice for the poor. In 1957 Mother Teresa began working with lepers, and her sisterhood ministered in many disaster areas around the world. Universally revered for her humility, MotherTeresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her relief work with the poor in 1979. Soon after her death in 1997, the Vatican began taking steps toward eventually conferring sainthood on Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa holds a young boy from a Catholic orphanage in Calcutta in December 1979. (BETTMANN/CORBIS)
Further Reading
Williams, Paul. (2002) The Life and Work of Mother Teresa. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha.
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