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The Most Famous

RELIGIOUS FIGURES from Lebanon

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This page contains a list of the greatest Lebanese Religious Figures. The pantheon dataset contains 2,238 Religious Figures, 18 of which were born in Lebanon. This makes Lebanon the birth place of the 27th most number of Religious Figures behind Portugal and Mexico.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Lebanese Religious Figures of all time. This list of famous Lebanese Religious Figures is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Lebanese Religious Figures.

Photo of Saint Barbara

1. Saint Barbara (300 - 306)

With an HPI of 81.68, Saint Barbara is the most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  Her biography has been translated into 55 different languages on wikipedia.

Saint Barbara (Ancient Greek: Ἁγία Βαρβάρα; Coptic: Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲃⲁⲣⲃⲁⲣⲁ; Russian: Варва́ра Илиопольская; Arabic: القديسة الشهيدة بربارة,Amharic/Ge'ez: ቅድስት በርባራ), known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian Greek saint and martyr. Saint Barbara is often portrayed with miniature chains and a tower. As one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Barbara is a popular saint, perhaps best known as the patron of armourers, artillerymen, military engineers, miners and others who work with explosives because of her legend's association with lightning, and also of mathematicians. A 15th-century French version of her story credits her with thirteen miracles, many of which reflect the security she offered that her devotees would not die before getting to make confession and receiving extreme unction. Despite the legends detailing her story, the earliest references to her supposed 3rd-century life do not appear until the 7th century, and veneration of her was common, especially in the East, from the 9th century. Because of doubts about the historicity of her legend, she was removed from the General Roman Calendar in the 1969 revision, though not from the Catholic Church's list of saints.

Photo of Pope Constantine

2. Pope Constantine (664 - 715)

With an HPI of 67.68, Pope Constantine is the 2nd most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 67 different languages.

Pope Constantine (Latin: Constantinus; 664 – 9 April 715) was the bishop of Rome from 25 March 708 to his death. One of the last popes of the Byzantine Papacy, the defining moment of his pontificate was his 710/711 visit to Constantinople, where he compromised with Justinian II on the Trullan canons of the Quinisext Council. The city's next papal visit occurred in 1967.

Photo of Charbel Makhlouf

3. Charbel Makhlouf (1828 - 1898)

With an HPI of 67.48, Charbel Makhlouf is the 3rd most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Charbel Makhlouf, O.L.M. (Arabic: شربل مخلوف, May 8, 1828 – December 24, 1898), born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf and venerated as Saint Charbel, was a Maronite monk and priest from Lebanon. During his life, he obtained a wide reputation for holiness, and for his ability to unite Christians, Muslims and Druze. He is known among Lebanese Christians as the "Miracle Monk of Lebanon" because of the favours received through his intercession, especially after prayers are said at his tomb in the Monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, Lebanon. He was beatified in 1965 and canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI. He is venerated as a saint and celebrated on 24 July by the Latin Church, and on the third Sunday of July by the Maronite Church.

Photo of Pope Sisinnius

4. Pope Sisinnius (650 - 708)

With an HPI of 67.30, Pope Sisinnius is the 4th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 66 different languages.

Pope Sisinnius (died 4 February 708) was the bishop of Rome from 15 January 708 to his death on 4 February. Besides being Syrian and his father being named John, little is known of Sisinnius' early life or career. At the time of his election to the papal throne, Sisinnius suffered from severe gout, leaving him weak. During the course of his twenty-day papacy, Sisinnius consecrated a bishop for Corsica and ordered the reinforcement of the walls surrounding the papal capital of Rome. On his death, Sisinnius was buried in Old St. Peter's Basilica. He was succeeded by Pope Constantine.

Photo of Christina of Bolsena

5. Christina of Bolsena (210 - 304)

With an HPI of 66.12, Christina of Bolsena is the 5th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  Her biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Christina of Bolsena, also known as Christine of Bolsena, or in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Christina the Great martyr, is venerated as a virgin martyr of the third century. Archaeological excavations of an underground cemetery constructed over her tomb have shown that she was venerated at Bolsena by the fourth century.

Photo of Eusebius of Nicomedia

6. Eusebius of Nicomedia (280 - 341)

With an HPI of 62.93, Eusebius of Nicomedia is the 6th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Eusebius of Nicomedia (; Greek: Εὐσέβιος; died 341) was an Arian priest who baptized Constantine the Great on his deathbed in 337. A fifth-century legend evolved that Pope Sylvester I was the one to baptize Constantine, but this is dismissed by scholars as a forgery 'to amend the historical memory of the Arian baptism that the emperor received at the end of his life, and instead to attribute an unequivocally orthodox baptism to him.' He was a bishop of Berytus (modern-day Beirut) in Phoenicia. He was later made the bishop of Nicomedia, where the Imperial court resided. He lived finally in Constantinople from 338 up to his death.

Photo of Rashid Rida

7. Rashid Rida (1865 - 1935)

With an HPI of 61.09, Rashid Rida is the 7th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Muhammad Rashid Rida (Arabic: محمد رشيد رضا, romanized: Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā; 1865–1935) was a prominent early Salafist Sunni Islamic scholar, reformer, theologian, and Islamic revivalist. As a Salafi scholar who called for the revival of hadith studies and a theoretician of an Islamic state, Riḍā condemned the rising currents of secularism and nationalism across the Islamic world following the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate and championed a global pan-Islamist program aimed at re-establishing an Islamic caliphate. As a young hadith student who studied al-Ghazali and ibn Taymiyyah, Riḍā believed reform was necessary to save the Muslim communities, eliminate Sufist practices he considered heretical, and initiate an Islamic renewal. He left Syria to work with Abduh in Cairo, where he was influenced by Abduh's Islamic Modernist movement and began publishing al-Manar in 1898. Through al-Manar's popularity across the Islamic World, Riḍā became one of the most influential Sunni jurists of his generation, leading the Arab Salafi movement and championing its cause. He was Abduh's de facto successor and was responsible for a split in Abduh's disciples into one group rooted in modernism and secularism and the other in the revival of Islam. Salafism, also known as Salafiyya, which sought the "Islamization of modernity," emerged from the latter. During the 1900s, Riḍā abandoned his initial rationalist leanings and began espousing Salafi-oriented methodologies such as that of Ahl-i Hadith. He later supported the Wahhabi movement, revived works by ibn Taymiyyah, and shifted the Salafism movement into a more conservative and strict Scripturalist approach. He is regarded by a number of historians as "pivotal in leading Salafism's retreat" from the rationalist school of Abduh. He strongly opposed liberalism, Western ideas, freemasonry, Zionism, and European imperialism, and supported armed Jihad to expel European influences from the Islamic World. He also laid the foundations for anti-Western, pan-Islamist struggle during the early 20th century.

Photo of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir

8. Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (1073 - 1162)

With an HPI of 60.82, Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir is the 8th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

‘Adī ibn Musāfir (Kurdish: شێخ ئادی, romanized: Şêx Adî, Arabic: الشيخ عدي بن مسافر born 1072–1078, died 1162) was a Sunni Muslim sheikh who is also considered a Yazidi saint. The Yazidis consider him as an avatar of Tawûsî Melek, which means "Peacock Angel". His tomb at Lalish, Iraq is a focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage.

Photo of Frumentius

9. Frumentius (400 - 383)

With an HPI of 60.04, Frumentius is the 9th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Frumentius (Ge'ez: ፍሬምናጦስ; died c. 383) was a Phoenician Christian missionary and the first bishop of Axum who brought Christianity to the Kingdom of Aksum. He is sometimes known by other names, such as Abuna ("Our Father") and Aba Salama ("Father of Peace"). He was ethnically a Phoenician, according to Rufinus, born in Tyre, modern day Lebanon. As a boy, he was captured with his brother on a voyage, and they became slaves to the King of Axum. He freed them shortly before his death, and they were invited to educate his young heir. They also began to teach Christianity in the region. Later, Frumentius traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, where he appealed to have a bishop appointed and missionary priests sent south to Axum. Thereafter, he was appointed bishop and established the Church in Ethiopia, converting many local people, as well as the king. His appointment began a tradition that the Patriarch of Alexandria appoint the bishops of Ethiopia.

Photo of Pamphilus of Caesarea

10. Pamphilus of Caesarea (240 - 309)

With an HPI of 57.95, Pamphilus of Caesarea is the 10th most famous Lebanese Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Saint Pamphilus (Greek: Πάμφιλος; latter half of the 3rd century – February 16, 309 AD), was a presbyter of Caesarea and chief among the biblical scholars of his generation. He was the friend and teacher of Eusebius of Caesarea, who recorded details of his career in a three-book Vita that has been lost.

People

Pantheon has 18 people classified as religious figures born between 210 and 1947. Of these 18, 3 (16.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living religious figures include Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, Aram I, and Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian. The most famous deceased religious figures include Saint Barbara, Pope Constantine, and Charbel Makhlouf. As of April 2022, 4 new religious figures have been added to Pantheon including Abd al-Rahman al-Awza'i, Giuseppe Simone Assemani, and Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian.

Living Religious Figures

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Deceased Religious Figures

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Newly Added Religious Figures (2022)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Religious Figures were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 5 most globally memorable Religious Figures since 1700.

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