| Catherine of Alexandria |
Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio, c. 1598 |
| Martyr and Virgin |
| Born |
ca. 287, Alexandria, Egypt[1] |
| Died |
ca. 305, Alexandria, Egypt[2] |
| Venerated in |
Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism |
| Major shrine |
Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai |
| Feast |
November 25 (November 24 in Orthodox churches of
Russian background) |
| Attributes |
the "breaking wheel"; sword; with a crown at her feet; hailstones; bridal veil and ring;
dove; scourge; book; woman
arguing with pagan philosophers[3] |
| Patronage |
apologists, craftsmen who work with a wheel (potters, spinners, etc.),
archivists, dying people, educators,
girls, jurists, knife sharpeners,
lawyers, librarians, libraries, Balliol College, maidens, mechanics, millers, nurses, philosophers, preachers,
scholars, schoolchildren, scribes, secretaries, spinsters,
stenographers, students, tanners, teachers, theologians,
University of Paris, unmarried girls, wheelwrights, Żejtun, Żurrieq[2][3] |
| Catholic cult suppressed |
1969; cult restored to an optional memorial by Pope John
Paul II in 2002[4] |
 Saints Portal |
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint
Catherine (Greek ἡ Ἁγία Αἰκατερίνη ἡ Μεγαλομάρτυς) is
a Christian saint and martyr
claimed to have been a noted scholar in the early 4th century. She was one of the saints to
speak to Saint Joan of Arc. The Orthodox
Churches venerate her as a "great martyr," and in the Roman Catholic Church, she is traditionally revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
Life and legend
Life
St. Catherine's life is mostly composed of legends which have many different variations. The most popular version is as
follows. Legend states that Catherine was the daughter of Constus, governor of Alexandria in
Egypt. She is said to have received a "most splendid education." She declared to her parents that
she would only enter into marriage with someone who surpassed her in reputation, wealth, beauty and wisdom. Catherine's mother
was secretly a Christian, and sent her to a hermit who told
her of a youth who surpassed her in everything, such that "His beauty was more radiant than the shining of the sun, His wisdom
governed all creation, His riches were spread throughout all the world."[1]
Having received a vision that urged her baptism, she became a Christian and
was transported to heaven in vision and betrothed to Christ by the Virgin Mary (this ancient theme of a mystical marriage
to a deity is familiar in the ecstatic mythology of the eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia).
Martyrdom
Catherine's story goes on to relate how she is said to have visited the current Roman Emperor
Maxentius) and to have attempted to convince him of the error of his ways in persecuting Christians. Her legend states that Catherine succeeded in converting his wife, the Empress, and also many pagan
wise men sent to dispute with her by the Emperor, all of whom were subsequently
martyred.[1] The Emperor ordered Catherine into prison, and when the people who visited her converted, she
was condemned to death on the breaking wheel (an instrument of torture). The wheel itself broke when she touched it, so she was beheaded.
In an elaboration of the legend, angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where in the
6th century AD, the Eastern Emperor Justinian
established Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, the
church being built between 548 and 565. Saint Catherine's Monastery
survives, a famous repository of early Christian art,
architecture and illuminated
manuscripts.
Her principal symbol is the spiked wheel, which has become known as the Catherine
wheel, and her feast day is celebrated on 25 November in most Christian churches.
However, her feast is celebrated on 24 November in the Russian Orthodox Church because Empress Catherine the
Great did not wish to share her patronal feast with the Leavetaking[5] of the feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos.
History and veneration
Historians believe that Catherine ('the pure one') may not have existed and that she was more an ideal exemplary figure than a
historical one.[6] She did certainly form an exemplary
counterpart to the pagan philosopher Hypatia of
Alexandria in the medieval mindset; and it has been suggested that she was invented specifically for that purpose. Like
Hypatia, she is said to have been highly learned (in philosophy and theology), very beautiful, sexually pure, and to have been brutally murdered for publicly stating her beliefs;
105 years before Hypatia's death (although first records mentioning her, or one of her variants, date much later).
In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed her
feast day (November 25) from its general
calendar of saints published by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the
Sacraments, citing a lack of historical evidence for her existence. In 2002, she was
reincluded in the calendar.[4] Between 1969 and
2002, concession was given by the Vatican to celebrate the feast just the same.
The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia describes
the historical importance of the belief in her as follows:
"Ranked with St. Margaret and St. Barbara
as one of the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, she was unceasingly praised
by preachers and sung by poets. It is a well known fact that Jacques-Benigne
Bossuet dedicated to her one of his most beautiful panegyrics and that Adam of St. Victor wrote a magnificent poem in her honour: Vox Sonora nostri chori, etc."
In many places her feast was celebrated with the utmost solemnity, servile work being suppressed and the devotions being
attended by great numbers of people. In several dioceses of France it was observed as a
Holy Day of Obligation up to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the
splendor of its ceremonial eclipsing that of the feasts of some of the Apostles.
Numberless chapels were placed under her patronage and her statue was found in nearly all churches, representing her according to
medieval iconography with a wheel, her instrument of
torture. Meanwhile, owing to several circumstances in his life, Saint Nicholas of Myra
was considered the patron of young bachelors and students, and
Saint Catherine became the patroness of young maidens and female students. Looked upon as the
holiest and most illustrious of the virgins of Christ after the Blessed Virgin Mary,
it was natural that she, of all others, should be worthy to watch over the virgins of the cloister and the young women of the
world."
The spiked wheel having become emblematic of the saint, wheelwrights and mechanics placed themselves under her patronage. Finally,
as according to tradition, she not only remained a virgin by governing her passions and conquered her executioners by wearying
their patience, but triumphed in science by closing the mouths of sophists, her intercession was
implored by theologians, apologists, pulpit orators, and philosophers. Before
studying, writing, or preaching, they besought her to illumine their minds, guide their pens, and impart eloquence to their
words. This devotion to St. Catherine which assumed such vast proportions in Europe after the
Crusades, received additional éclat in France in the beginning of the fifteenth century, when it was rumored
that she had spoken to Joan of Arc and, together with St. Margaret, had been divinely appointed Joan's adviser."
Gallery
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Catherine of Alexandria, by Callisto Piazza, circa 1540
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Wooden sculpture of Catherine of Alexandria in the Sankt Franziskuskirche, Zwillbrock, Germany, 15th century
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St. Catherine by Mariano Gerada, 1818, Zurrieq-Malta
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St. Catherine Parish Church of Żejtun-Malta, that have a statue
of St. Catherine by Andrea Imbroll, 1757 your face
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See also
Notes
References
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
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External links
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