A Catholic nun from Brazil has become the world’s oldest person at the age of 116 years 210 days. Guinness World Records have confirmed.
A former teacher, Inah Canabarro Lucas has taken the titles of both the oldest woman living and oldest person living as confirmed by LongeviQuest, following the death of the former record holder, Tomiko Itooka, of Japan.
The late Tomiko died at her nursing home in Ashiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, on the night of 29 December 2024, although her death wasn’t confirmed until the fourth day of January 2025
Inah, who coincidentally is also the oldest nun in the world, was born on 8 June 1908 in Sao Francisco de Assis in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
The Nun is said to be the last living person who was born in 1908 and one of only three surviving people born in the 1900s.
Born to Joao Antonio Lucas and Mariana Canabarro Lucas, Inah was so skinny as a child that many didn’t think she would survive into adulthood.
Inah was 16 when she began her religious journey.
The Brazilian nun studied at the Santa Teresa de Jesus boarding school in Santana do Livramento, and later moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where she took her vows to become a nun on 27 December 1928.
Two years later, in 1930, she returned to Brazil, where she became a teacher of Portuguese and mathematics at a school in Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro.
Her teaching career took her around many locations in the world and covered many decades.
She eventually took a position at the Provincial House in Porto Alegre in 1980.
Inah was honored on her 110th birthday, in 2018, when she received an apostolic blessing from Pope Francis.
The Sister is the second oldest nun ever documented, after Lucile Randon, also known as Sister André, who was the world’s oldest person until her death at age 118.
