Mother Teresa was the founder of the congregation, Missionaries of Charity, the religious order that today has over 4,501 sisters actively working in 133 countries.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, in Albania on August 26 1910, she was lovingly called Mother Teresa after her selfless work with the homeless in Kolkata. “By blood I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun,” she had said.
The first home, Nirmal Hriday, the Home for Dying Destitutes was set up in 1952 in Kolkata.
She began the Order on October 7, 1950, officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta and by 1990 had opened houses in almost all communist countries including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.
Her tireless and dedicated work won her the Indian Padmashri in 1962 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
Despite suffering from severe health problems, she continued to govern her Society responding to the needs of the poor and the Church. She died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87.
Less than two years after her death, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization and on October 19, 2003, she was beatified in front of a crowd of 3,00,000 people assembled in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.