Francis of Assisi
Founder of the Franciscan order and traditional (but disputed) namesake of the Prayer for Peace.
Francis of Assisi was the son of a wealthy Umbrian cloth merchant who, after a conversion experience in his early twenties, renounced his inheritance and founded the Order of Friars Minor in 1209. The Franciscans took vows of poverty more radical than any previous Christian religious order and lived as itinerant preachers. Francis is honored as the patron saint of animals, the environment, and Italy, and is one of the most universally beloved figures in Christian history. The famous Prayer for Peace ("Lord, make me an instrument of your peace...") that bears his name was not in fact written by him. It first appeared in print in French in a small Catholic devotional magazine in Paris in December 1912 AD and was attributed to Francis only in the 1920s, based on the prayer's thematic similarity to his spirituality. Both the prayer and Francis's reputation as the great Christian peacemaker are now inseparable in popular Christianity.
Attribution to this author is now considered uncertain. See the prayer page for the current scholarly view.