Mother (Agnes Aonxha Bojaxhiu) Teresa
See also Mother Teresa
b. 1910. Missionary to India. Born in Yugoslavia, daughter of an Albanian grocer, she went to India in 1928 as a teacher under the Roman Catholic Church. Her heart soon went out to the poor of Calcutta, and after nursing training she moved into the slums. In 1948 she founded the Order of the Missionaries of Charity and organized schools and dispensaries. She became an Indian citizen, and adopted the sari as the habit of her order, which received canonical sanction from Pius XII in 1950. A leper colony was built, and the blind, crippled, aged, and dying were served. In 1963 the Indian government honored her. In 1964 Paul VI on his visit gave her a limousine which she promptly disposed of, giving the proceeds to aid her leper work. In 1971 she received the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. By the mid-seventies her order numbered some 700 nuns in 60 centers in Calcutta and 70 worldwide centers from Britain to Australia.