1725) John Humphrey Noyes

John Humphrey Noyes (1811 – 1886). American preacher, radical religious philosopher, and utopian socialist. He founded utopian communities at Putney, Vermont, Oneida, New York, and Wallingford, Connecticut, and is credited with coining the term "complex marriage".

- "Endowed with a ruddy, freckled complexion and a bright red shock of hair, John Humphrey Noyes early gave signs of a passionate nature to match... He was further hampered by the conviction that his red hair and freckles rendered him physically repulsive." https://www.thehistoryreader.com/historical-figures/polly-hayes-noyes/ 

- "Born September 3, 1811, in Brattleboro, Vermont, Noyes was the fourth of nine children, a boy with bright red hair and freckles." https://www.mentalfloss.com/history/charles-guiteau-oneida-community

1703) Jadwiga of Poland

Jadwiga (1373 or 1374 – 1399), also known as Hedwig. First female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland, as well as its last hereditary ruler. She reigned from 16 October 1384 until her death. Born in Buda, she was the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary and Poland and his wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. 

In 1386 she married Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who took the Catholic baptismal name Władysław, Jadwiga died due to postpartum complications and as her only daughter predeceased her, the Queen was the last hereditary monarch of Poland. With her death, the throne of Poland became elective. 

In 1997, she was canonized by the Catholic Church.

- "Jadwiga was said to have been tall and beautiful with red hair."   https://www.galwaycathedral.ie/news/saint-month-st-jadwiga#:~:text=Jadwiga%20was%20said%20to%20have,establish%20a%20department%20of%20Theology.

Effigy of Jadwiga on her seal

1702) Faustina Kowalska

Maria Faustyna Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament (born Helena Kowalska; 1905 – 1938). Polish Catholic religious sister and mystic. Faustyna, popularly spelled Faustina in English, had apparitions of Jesus Christ which inspired the Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy, therefore she is sometimes called the "secretary" of Divine Mercy.

Throughout her life, Kowalska reported having visions of Jesus and conversations with him, which she noted in her diary, later published as The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul. 

At the age of 20 years, she joined a convent in Warsaw. She was later transferred to Płock and then to Vilnius. The Catholic Church canonized Kowalska as a saint on 30 April 2000. Her tomb is in the Divine Mercy Sanctuary, Kraków, where she spent the end of her life.

- "A red-haired, bouncing Polish baby girl named Helen certainly did when she was born 119 years ago today into the home of a poor, peasant family who had its priorities straight."   https://www.thedivinemercy.org/articles/happy-119th-birthday-st-faustina#:~:text=It%20helps%20to%20have%20a,who%20had%20its%20priorities%20straight.

- "I discovered a red-haired and freckled young woman who, before entering the convent, loved to dress fashionably!" https://www.radiantmagazine.com/2019/02/18/my-friend-st-faustina/ 

Helena Kowalska before entering the convent

Portrait painting of Faustina Kowalska

1657) Saint Sava

Saint Sava (1169 or 1174 – 1235/6), known as the Enlightener or the Illuminator. Serbian prince and Orthodox monk, the first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church, the founder of Serbian law, and a diplomat.
Sava, born as Rastko Nemanjić, was the youngest son of Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja (founder of the Nemanjić dynasty), and ruled the appanage of Zachlumia briefly in 1190–92. He then left for Mount Athos, where he became a monk tonsured with the name Sava (Sabbas). At Athos he established the monastery of Hilandar, which became one of the most important cultural and religious centres of the Serbian people. In 1219 the Patriarchate exiled in Nicea recognized him as the first Serbian Archbishop, and in the same year he authored the oldest known constitution of Serbia, the Zakonopravilo nomocanon, thus securing full religious and political independence. Sava is regarded as the founder of Serbian medieval literature.
He is the patron saint of Serbia, Serbs, Serbian education and medicine. The Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade is dedicated to him, built on the site where the Ottomans burnt his remains in 1594, during an uprising in which Serbs used icons of Sava as their war flags; the church is one of the largest church buildings in the world.
In order to distinguish him from other saints and canonized Serbian archbishops of the same name, he is also posthumously titled Saint Sava I of Serbia.

 

1623) Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, (1090 – 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard. Abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through the nascent Cistercian Order.

He was sent to found Clairvaux Abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val d'Absinthe, about 15 kilometres (9 mi) southeast of Bar-sur-Aube. In the year 1128, Bernard attended the Council of Troyes, at which he traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templar, which soon became an ideal of Christian nobility.

Bernard was canonized just 21 years after his death by Pope Alexander III. In 1830 Pope Pius VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church.

 

- "His body was so wasted and worn away, that he seemed to be nothing but skin and bones; his face was ruddie, his hair and beard red, and in his old age white, of a middle stature, rather tall then low." https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VO1BAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1...

 

San Bernardo by Juan Correa de Vivar

 

1563) Mary Field Garner

Mary Field Garner (1836 – 1943). Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and a Mormon pioneer.

She was born in Stanley, County Durham, England, to William and Mary Harding Fieldm who were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after hearing Wilford Woodruff speak as a missionary. They moved to the United States after their conversion in order to congregate with the main body of members of the church in Nauvoo, Illinois.

She married William Garner Jr. on November 1, 1856. William was a farmer and was called on a mission for the church in 1882. The couple had ten children.

Garner was an active member of the LDS Church throughout her life. She served as a Relief Society leader in her ward and participated in many other church activities. She continued to share her belief in the Church with others.

Even at an old age, she did not wear glasses and was in good health. She had only seen a doctor once in her life before her fall. At the time of her death, she was the oldest Utah resident and the eldest member of the church. She was also the last living acquaintance of Joseph Smith. She left behind over 600 lineal descendants, and four of her children were still living when she died.

 

- "She records that she had long red, curly hair." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Field_Garner

 

 

1498) Saint Stanislaus Kostka

Stanisław Kostka (1550 – 1568). Polish novice of the Society of Jesus. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Stanislaus Kostka.

He entered the Society of Jesus in Rome on his 17th birthday (28 October 1567).

On the evening of the feast of Saint Lawrence (10 August), Stanislaus fell ill with a high fever, and clearly saw that his last hour had come. He wrote a letter to the Blessed Virgin begging her to call him to the skies there to celebrate with her the glorious anniversary of her Assumption (15 August). His confidence in the Blessed Virgin, which had already brought him many favours, was this time again rewarded; on 15 August 1568, towards 4:00 in the morning, while he prayed he died.

The Holy See ratified his beatification in 1605; he was canonized in 1726. St. Stanislaus is a popular saint of Poland, and many religious institutions have chosen him as the protector of their novitiates. The representations of him in art are quite varied; he is sometimes depicted receiving Holy Communion from the hands of angels, or receiving the Infant Jesus from the hands of the Virgin, or in the midst of a battle putting to flight the enemies of his country. At times he is depicted near a fountain putting a wet linen cloth on his breast. He is invoked for palpitations of the heart and for dangerous cases of illness.

On 15 August 2018 Pope Francis wrote to the Bishop of Płock in honor of the 450th anniversary of Stanislaus's death. In his message, Pope Francis cites a maxim of Stanislaus's: “Ad maiora natus sum – 'I was born for greater things'".

 

- "He was of middle stature, of a fair height, his hair dark auburn, his face gently rounded..." https://archive.org/.../storyofststanisl00cole_djvu.txt

 

 

1419) Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine

Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, later Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia (canonised as Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna; 1864 – 1918). German Hessian and Rhenish princess of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. She was also a maternal great-aunt of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II.
A granddaughter of Queen Victoria and an older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress, Elisabeth became famous in Russian society for her beauty and charitable works among the poor. After the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization assassinated her husband with a bomb in 1905, Elisabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer, Ivan Kalyayev, and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow. In 1918 she was arrested and ultimately murdered by the Bolsheviks.
In 1981 Elisabeth was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate.

 

 

1391) Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (Mother Mary Alphonsa)

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1851 – 1926). American writer and religious leader. As Mother Mary Alphonsa, she was a Roman Catholic religious sister, social worker, and foundress of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.

She was the youngest child of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia Peabody.

Rose married author George Parsons Lathrop in 1871 and in 1876 they had a son, Francis, who died of diphtheria at the age of five. Following Francis' death, George had become an alcoholic and was increasingly unstable, so that the Lathrops separated permanently in 1896. George died of cirrhosis three years later.

In the summer of 1896, Rose trained as a nurse at the then–New York Cancer Hospital, the first institution in the United States to provide training in treating cancer at a time when general hospitals in the city did not admit patients with cancer.

On December 8, 1900, Rose founded a new religious order, the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer (now known as the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne); she became its first Mother Superior, with the name Mother Mary Alphonsa.

In 2003, Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, approved the movement for Mother Mary Alphonsa's canonization. She now has the title "Servant of God" in the Catholic Church.

Her eldest sister was Una Hawthorne. 

 

- "In plain English, we have another little red-headed daughter." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Mary_Alphonsa

 

- "Reminders of Lathrop are omnipresent, with a portrait adorning a wall and a room dedicated to memorializing everything from locks of her red hair to correspondence with friends." https://eu.usatoday.com/.../ny-matriarch-sainthood/2159781/

 

- "By the cast window sat a lovely creature with a matchless crown of red-gold hair." https://books.google.it/books?id=uZ4KLtokGNAC&pg=PT301...

 

- "Mrs Lathrop, beautiful and youthful-looking, with a mass of rich auburn hair..." https://www.patheos.com/.../nathaniel-hawthornes-daughter...

 

- "Baby Rose, appropriately nicknamed Rosebud, was a jolly, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed toddler, with the same red-gold hair that her sister possessed." http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/mirror_eldritch/wayha.html

 

 

1347) Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic, also known as Dominic of Osma and Dominic of Caleruega, often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán (1170 – 1221). Castilian Catholic priest and founder of the Dominican Order. Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers.

In 1215, Dominic established himself, with six followers, in a house given by Peter Seila, a rich resident of Toulouse. Dominic saw the need for a new type of organization to address the spiritual needs of the growing cities of the era, one that would combine dedication and systematic education, with more organizational flexibility than either monastic orders or the secular clergy. He subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance; and meanwhile Bishop Foulques gave them written authority to preach throughout the territory of Toulouse.

Also in 1215, the year of the Fourth Lateran Council, Dominic and Foulques went to Rome to secure the approval of the Pope, Innocent III. Dominic returned to Rome a year later, and was finally granted written authority in December 1216 and January 1217 by the new pope, Honorius III for him to form the Ordo Praedicatorum ("Order of Preachers").

The spread of the Rosary, a Marian devotion, is attributed to the preaching of Dominic. For centuries the Rosary has been at the heart of the Dominican Order. Pope Pius XI stated, "The Rosary of Mary is the principle and foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others." For centuries, Dominicans have been instrumental in spreading the Rosary and emphasizing the Catholic belief in The Power of the Rosary.

 

  "Cecilia Cesarini, who was received by Dominic into his new order, in her old age described him as "...thin and of middle height. His face was handsome and somewhat fair. He had reddish hair and beard and beautiful eyes ..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Dominic

 

- "Saint Dominik was of a midle stature, and a most comly person, his face long, his nose bowing like a hawkes bill, his hair somewhat red, the color of his face white, his head more gray then his beard, his hair very thick, so that there was no appearance that he would become bald." https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VO1BAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1...

 

 

 

1346) Pietro Carnesecchi

Pietro Carnesecchi (1508 – 1567). Italian humanist.

Born in Florence, he came into touch with the new learning at the house of his maternal uncle, Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi, in Rome. At the age of twenty-five he held several rich livings, had been notary and protonotary to the Curia and was first secretary to the pope.

By his conduct at the conference with Francis I of France at Marseille he won the favour of Catherine de' Medici and other influential personages at the French court, who in later days befriended him. He made the acquaintance of the Spanish reformer Juan de Valdés at Rome, and got to know him as a theologian at Naples. Under Valdés' influence he wholeheartedly accepted Luther's doctrine of justification by faith, though he repudiated a policy of schism.

When the movement of suppression began, Carnesecchi was implicated. In 1557 he was cited (for the second time) before the tribunal in Rome, but refused to appear. The death of Pope Paul IV and the accession of Pope Pius IV in 1559 made his position easier, and he came to live in Rome. With the accession of Pope Pius V in 1566 the Inquisition renewed its activities with fiercer zeal than ever.

Carnesecchi was in Venice when the news reached him, and betook himself to Florence, where, thinking himself safe, he was betrayed by Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, who wished to curry favour with the pope. From July 1566 he lay in prison over a year. On 21 September 1567 a sentence of degradation and death was passed on him and sixteen others, ambassadors from Florence vainly kneeling to the pope for some mitigation, and on 1 October he was publicly beheaded and then burned.

 Only portraiture for now.

 

 

651) Grigori Rasputin

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869 – 1916). Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and gained considerable influence in late imperial Russia.
He has been described as a monk or as a "strannik" (wanderer, or pilgrim), though he held no official position in the Russian Orthodox Church. After traveling to St. Petersburg, either in 1903 or the winter of 1904–5, Rasputin captivated some church and social leaders. He became a society figure, and met the Tsar in November 1905.
In late 1906, Rasputin began acting as a healer for the Tsar and his wife Alexandra's son Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia and was Nicholas' only heir (Tsarevitch).
In the early morning of 30 December 1916, Rasputin was assassinated by a group of conservative noblemen who opposed his influence over Alexandra and the Tsar.
Some writers have suggested that Rasputin helped discredit the tsarist government, and thus helped precipitate the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Romanov dynasty. Very little about Rasputin's life and influence is certain, however, as accounts have often been based on hearsay, rumor, and legend.

- "Handsome, with long reddish hair and beard, broad shouldered, vigorous and erect, Rasputin had an extraordinary personality..." https://www.fontanka.co.uk/firsttoseventhjanuary

- "She was almost as tall as Gregory, her blond hair contrasted sharply with his unruly auburn locks." https://www.proza.ru/2013/06/14/332

529) William Farel

William Farel (1489 – 1565), Guilhem Farel or Guillaume Farel. French evangelist, Protestant reformer and a founder of the Reformed Church in the Principality of Neuchâtel, in the Republic of Geneva, and in Switzerland in the Canton of Bern and the (then occupied by Bern) Canton of Vaud. He is most often remembered for having persuaded John Calvin to remain in Geneva in 1536, and for persuading him to return there in 1541, after their expulsion in 1538. They influenced the government of Geneva to the point that it became the "Protestant Rome", where Protestants took refuge and non-Protestants were driven out. Together with Calvin, Farel worked to train missionary preachers who spread the Protestant cause to other countries, and especially to France.

- "The Protestant Telegraph was particularly impressed by the passionate, dynamic, red-haired William Farel..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "But the red-haired, fiery Farel thundered that God would curse his labors if he did not obey." https://books.google.it/books…

- "A powerful evangelist with fiery red hair, Farel had been leading the cause of reform in Geneva and was in need of help." https://books.google.it/books…

478) Brigham Young

Brigham Young (1801 – 1877). American religious leader, politician, and settler. He was the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877. He founded Salt Lake City and he served as the first governor of the Utah Territory. Young also led the foundings of the precursors to the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.

- "Brigham Young was thirty-one years old, barrel-chested and of medium height, with sandy-red hair..." https://books.google.it/books…

 - "Born in Vermont in 1801, Young had red hair and a bad temper." https://books.google.it/

- "It was often pointed out that when big, stocky, red-headed Mormom leader Brigham Young..."  https://books.google.it/

493) Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy

Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy (1455 – 1492) (also spelt MacCarthy and Macarthy). Irish ecclesiastic. He was a bishop who never ruled his see, even though he was appointed to two of them: Bishop of Ross, Ireland in 1482 and Bishop of Cork and Cloyne in 1490. His feast day is 25 October. He died in the Italian city of Ivrea, where his tomb became a local shrine. In 1742, when the tomb was opened, the body was found to be perfectly preserved.

- "Eventually the tombs of both saints were opened and Thaddeus’s remains were re-interred in a reliquary (he was found to have red hair)" https://roaringwaterjournal.com/…/thaddeus-mccarthy-the-bi…/

255) Alexandra Feodorovna

Alexandra Feodorovna (1872 – 1918). Empress of Russia as the spouse of Nicholas II, the last ruler of the Russian Empire. Granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Originally Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, she was given the name and patronymic Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted and was received into the Russian Orthodox Church. She and her immediate family were all killed while in Bolshevik captivity in 1918, during the Russian Revolution. In 2000 the Russian Orthodox Church canonized her as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer.

Sister of Elisabeth. 

Her children were Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei. 

She was also a maternal great-aunt of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II.

- “By her late teens, Alix had blossomed into a beautiful young woman with red gold hair and sparkling blue eyes…” https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Alexandra_Feodorovna_(Alix_of_He…
 
- “Over the head of Alexandra Feodorovna flows the same Niagara of dark auburn hair which was her greatest physical charm when she was merely Princess Alix Helena Louise Beatrice Victoria of Hesse and knew the pinch of poverty.” http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.it/…/empress-alexandra-f…
 

- “Her red-gold hair was never touched with curling irons…” http://www.alexanderpalace.org/realtsaritsa/1chap4.html
 
- “She was blessed with extraordinary good looks; she was a small girl with a slim yet shapely figure, rosy lips, a clear and fair complexion, blue eyes, and waves of dark auburn hair.” http://crownstiarasandcoronets.blogspot.it/…/alexandra-feod…

79) Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), Italian Dominican friar and preacher.

"We are now in the summer of 1472. Girolamo is twenty years of age. From this time we have a somewhat sketchy but not wholly inadequate descriptive portrait of the young man. It is by one of his contemporaries, Francesco Pico della Mirandola, the uncle of the great humanist.

Pico shows Girolamo to have been a person of average height. He had a habit of walking very erect, his head and shoulders thrown back, and vigorously swinging his arms. He was of a genial disposition, of ready wit and even jocose at times. His eyelashes were of a peculiar color, ruddy, dark orange-like, but much lighter than his eyebrows. He wore his dark red hair in curls falling to his shoulders. He had a strong aquiline nose, a large mouth, and a slightly receding forehead."

 https://books.google.it/books

77) Pope Leo IX

Pope Leo IX (1002 – 1054), born Bruno of Egisheim-Dagsburg. Pope from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054. He was a German aristocrat and a powerful ruler of central Italy while holding the papacy. He is regarded as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, his feast day celebrated on 19 April.

- "Amatus says that he was very handsome with red hair and a lordly stature. He was a master of letters, and was beloved by the emperor as well as by the whole Roman Church." https://www.scribd.com/document/306117875/Studies-in-Hte-History-of-Christian-Traditions-159-Stroll-Popes-and-Antipopes-2011