CATHERINE of Alexandria

Also known as: Katherine of Alexandria
Memorial: 25 November; removed from the calendar and cultus suppressed in 1969
Profile: Apocryphal. Nobility. Learned in science and oratory. Converted to Christianity after receiving a vision. When she was 18 years old, during the persecution of Maximus, she offered to debate the pagan philosophers. Many were converted by her arguments, and immediately martyred. Maximus had her scourged and imprisoned. The empress and the leader of Maximus' army were amazed by the stories, went to see Catherine in prison. They converted and were martyred. Maximus ordered her broken on the wheel, but she touched it and the wheel was destroyed. She was beheaded, and her body whisked away by angels.

Immensely popular during the Middle Ages, there were many chapels and churches devoted to her throughout western Europe, and she was reported as one of the divine advisors to Saint Joan of Arc. Her reputation for learning and wisdom led to her patronage of libaries, librarians, teachers, archivists, and anyone associated with wisdom or teaching. Her debating skill and persuasive language has led to her patronage of lawyers. And her torture on the wheel led to those who work with them asking for her intercession. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

While there may well have been a noble, educated, virginal lady who swayed pagans with her rhetoric during the persecutions, the accretion of legend, romance and poetry has long since buried the real Catherine.
Died: beheaded c.305 in Alexandria, Egypt
Canonized: Pre-Congregation
Name Meaning: pure one (= Catherine)
Patronage: apologists; craftsmen who work with a wheel (potters, spinners, etc.); archivists; attornies; barristers; diocese of Dumaguete, Philippines; dying people; educators; girls; Heidesheim am Rhein, Germany; jurists; knife grinders; knife sharpeners; Kuldiga, Latvia; lawyers; librarians; libraries; Mähring, Germany; maidens; mechanics; millers; nurses; old maids; philosophers; potters; preachers; scholars; schoolchildren; scribes; secretaries; spinners; spinsters; stenographers; students; tanners; teachers; theologians; turners; University of Paris; unmarried girls; wheelwrights; Zejtun, Malta
Representation: spiked wheel; woman strapped to the spiked wheel on which she was martyred; woman arguing with pagan philosophers
Images: Gallery of images of Saint Catherine [12 images, 209 kb]
Additional Information: Goffine's Devout Instructions
Saint Catherine's Wigs
Google Directory
Christian Biographies, by Kames E Keifer
Columbia Encyclopedia
Catholic Online
Lives of the Saints, by John Crawley
Explore Art
For All The Saints, by Katherine Rabenstein
Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Society
Ecole Glossary, by Karen Rae Keck
New Catholic Dictionary
Catholic Encyclopedia, by Leon Clugnet