Augustine of Hippo
354 — 430 · Feast day: August 28
Augustine of Hippo spent his youth in hedonism, then nearly a decade among the Manicheans, then restless years as a skeptic and Neoplatonist — all while his mother Monica prayed for him. His garden conversion in Milan in 386 and baptism by Ambrose the following Easter led to his return to North Africa, his ordination, and thirty-five years as Bishop of Hippo, where he built the intellectual framework of Western Christian theology.