10.7: Service and SacrificeSaints and holy peopleGreater love has no man than this, People who are willing to die for their beliefs are usually called martyrs. They believe that some force or ideal far greater than their own lives calls them to make a sacrifice of themselves. The Christian Church has always recognized that certain people are especially holy, because they have lived a life that is very close to the Christian ideal. The Church has traditionally called these people saints. A saint is someone who has lived a holy or completely unselfish life and is officially recognized after death as being worthy of special honour. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches officially recognize that a person has lived the life of a saint by a process called canonization. The Church authorities study every aspect of the dead persons life in great detail before deciding whether to make that person a saint. However not everyone who has lived such a good life is known to the authorities, and so on 1 November all these people are honoured in the Feast of All Saints. In this section you can look at profiles of four twentieth-century Christians whose faith has inspired them to live lives of self-sacrifice and service to others. Mother Teresa Martin Luther King Maximilian Kolbe Oscar Romero
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