One of the most famous saints in history was African: Saint Augustine. African? Yes: the great saint and Father of the Church, whose conversion process is recounted in the spiritual classic, The Confessions, was Bishop of Hippo, a city located in present-day Algeria. Augustine was born in that country and died there in the year 430 A.D. Not only was Augustine from Africa, so were many great figures of the early Church, such as Origen, Saint Athanasius, Saint Cyril, Tertullian and Saint Cyprian. From the 2nd to the 3rd century, Christian life in the regions of North Africa was flourishing. But subsequent wars and other difficulties led to an almost complete disappearance of the faith from a land initially evangelized by St. Mark.
