St. Catherine

St. Catherine

St. Catherine is an early Christian saint and martyr. Her feast day is no longer officially observed. According to legend, whe was extremely learned even as a child. She was eventually arrested in Alexandria for being a Christian, and she was to be tortured on the famous Catherine Wheel. However, the wheel miraculously broke apart, so she was beheaded instead.

Angels bore her body to the monastery of Saint Catherine on the Sinai, where she is supposed to have been buried.

In 1968, she was dropped from the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church because of doubts she actually existed. Her name is not mentioned by any source prior to the crusades.

Because of her, the ancient Greek name Aikaterine survives today as Katherine, or one of its variants.

Her name should never be spelt with a K.