Catherine of Alexandria
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Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine (Greek ἡ Ἃγια Ἃικατερίνη ἡ Μεγαλομάρτυς) is a Christian saint and martyr claimed to have been a noted scholar in the early 4th century. 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.
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[edit] Life and legend
[edit] Legend of her life
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 prayed and 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).
[edit] Martyrdom
Catherine's legend goes on to relate how she is said to have visited the current Roman Emperor (who could have been Maximian, Maximinus II, or 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.
[edit] 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."
[edit] Gallery
 14th century icon of Saint Catherine |
 Catherine of Alexandria by Raphael, c. 1507 |
 Catherine of Alexandria, by Callisto Piazza, circa 1540 |
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 SS. Augustine, Catherine of Alexandria, and Anthony of Padua by Luca Signorelli, 1498 |
 Wooden sculpture of Catherine of Alexandria in the Sankt Franziskuskirche, Zwillbrock, Germany, 15th century |
 St. Catherine by Mariano Gerada, 1818, Zurrieq-Malta |
[edit] See also
- Catherinettes
- Catherine wheel
- Saint Catherine of Alexandria, by Raphael
- Saint Catherine, by Caravaggio
- Catharina - Lunar crater named after St. Catherine
- Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai
- Santa Catalina Island - California Channel Island named after St. Catherine
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Accessed 30 Dec 2006.
- ^ a b See her Patron Saints Index profile
- ^ a b See her Catholic Culture profile
- ^ a b "Inside the New Roman Missal (catholicforum.com - 23 March 2002)
- ^ See the definition of Leavetaking on Orthodox Wiki
- ^ Harold Thayler Davis. Alexandria: The Golden City. (Principia Press of Illinois, 1957).
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
[edit] External links
- Iconographical Themes in Art - Saint Catherine of Alexandria
- Details of Saint Catherine's life - Saint Katherine Orthodox Church; includes a gallery of icons of the saint
