St. Catherine
(?)

The only information about St. Catherine is based on legend.

Her parents were a pagan couple who had gone to consult an astrologer to find out why they could not have children. They then went to pray in a temple that had been pagan until an artist had made a cross there, making all the pagan images all to the ground. After this the couple had St. Catherine.

As a young maiden she was martyred under Maxentius in Alexandria.

According to another legend she was the daughter of king Costus who inherited great wealth when her parents died. She refused all suitors because no one was good enough, and was one day visited by a hermit who told her her true husband was Christ.

She then became Christian, and allegedly converted 50 pagan philosophers after a long dispute at the age of 18. The converts were all killed by emperor Maxentius, and so was St. Catherine after refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods.
She was sentenced to die by the wheel, but an angel appeared and destroyed it. This made the empress convert, and she was beheaded, and so was St. Catherine.

When the saint had died, blood and milk floated out of her body, and angels carried her body to Mt. Sinai, where she was buried.
Her relics are allegedly in the monastery of Mt. Sinai.
In art she is often shown arguing with pagan philosophers or with the wheel she was to be killed by.
Orthodox nameday: 25/11


The church of St. Catherine
Plaka, Athens

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St. Catherine