The Most Famous
RELIGIOUS FIGURES from Uganda
This page contains a list of the greatest Ugandan Religious Figures. The pantheon dataset contains 2,238 Religious Figures, 3 of which were born in Uganda. This makes Uganda the birth place of the 83rd most number of Religious Figures behind Finland and Norway.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Ugandan Religious Figures of all time. This list of famous Ugandan Religious Figures is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Charles Lwanga (1860 - 1886)
With an HPI of 51.11, Charles Lwanga is the most famous Ugandan Religious Figure. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages on wikipedia.
Charles Lwanga (Luganda: Kaloli Lwanga; 1 January 1860 – 3 June 1886) was a Ugandan convert to the Catholic Church who was martyred with a group of his peers and is revered as a saint by both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. A member of the Baganda tribe, Lwanga was born in the Kingdom of Buganda, the central and southern part of modern Uganda, and served as chief of the royal pages and later major-domo in the court of King Mwanga II of Buganda. He was baptised by Pere Giraud on 15 November 1885. In an effort to resist a Christian worldview that undermined the authority of his office, King Mwanga II insisted that Christian converts abandon their new faith and executed many Anglicans and Catholics between 1885 and 1887, including Lwanga and other officials in the royal court.
2. Emmanuel Wamala (1926 - )
With an HPI of 40.61, Emmanuel Wamala is the 2nd most famous Ugandan Religious Figure. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Emmanuel Wamala (born 15 December 1926) is a Ugandan Catholic prelate who served as the Archbishop of Kampala from 1990 to 2006. He was made a cardinal in 1994.
3. John Sentamu (1949 - )
With an HPI of 30.57, John Sentamu is the 3rd most famous Ugandan Religious Figure. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu, Baron Sentamu, (; Luganda pronunciation: [sːéːntámû]; born 10 June 1949) is a retired Anglican bishop and life peer. He was Archbishop of York and Primate of England from 2005 to 2020. Born near Kampala in Uganda, Sentamu studied law at Makerere University before gaining employment as an advocate of the Supreme Court of Uganda. Speaking out against the regime of President Idi Amin, he was briefly imprisoned before fleeing in 1974 to the United Kingdom, where he devoted himself to Anglicanism, beginning his study of theology at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1976 and eventually gaining a doctorate in 1984. He studied for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1979. In 1996 he was consecrated as the area bishop of Stepney and in 2002 became Bishop of Birmingham. In 2005 he was appointed to the office of Archbishop of York. He has also received attention for his vocal criticism of former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. Sentamu was omitted from the first list of new peerages following his resignation as archbishop, but it was announced in December 2020 that Sentamu would be created a crossbench life peer in the second list of 2020 Political Honours.
Pantheon has 3 people classified as religious figures born between 1860 and 1949. Of these 3, 2 (66.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living religious figures include Emmanuel Wamala and John Sentamu. The most famous deceased religious figures include Charles Lwanga. As of April 2022, 1 new religious figures have been added to Pantheon including John Sentamu.
