Holy Great-Martyr Catherine

Life

Catherine was the daughter of Emperor Constus. After her father's death she lived with her mother in Alexandria. And her mother was a secret Christian, who through her own spiritual father brought Catherine also to the Christian Faith. In a vision Saint Catherine received a ring from the Lord Jesus Himself, as a sign of betrothal to Him. That ring remains to this day on her hand. Catherine was very gifted by God and very well educated in Greek philosophy, medicine, rhetoric, and logic, and besides this she was of unusual bodily beauty. When the wicked Emperor Maxentius himself offered sacrifices to idols and commanded others to do the same, Saint Catherine came out boldly before the emperor and denounced his idolatrous delusion. Seeing that she was stronger than he in wisdom and knowledge, the emperor summoned fifty of the wisest men to dispute with her about the faith and to shame her. But Catherine outwitted them and shamed them. The enraged emperor commanded that all fifty sages be burned in fire. These sages, through the prayer of Saint Catherine, before death all confessed the name of Christ and declared themselves Christians. When the martyr was in prison, she brought to the true faith the imperial commander Porphyrius with two hundred soldiers and the empress herself (Augusta-Basilissa). All suffered for Christ. During the torture of Saint Catherine, an angel of God appeared to her, stopped and broke the wheel on which the holy virgin was being tortured; and after that the Lord Christ Himself appeared to her and comforted her. After many tortures Catherine was beheaded by the sword in her eighteenth year, on November 24, 310. From her body flowed milk instead of blood. Her wonder-working relics rest on Sinai.

From the Hymn of Praise

Catherine the Wise, earthly princess,For Christ the Savior became a martyr.Foolish Maxentius offered her life"Only," he says, "woman, be my wife!"