Catherine of Alexandria
See also: Holy Catherine
Though located at the beginning of the 4th century, the legend and thus the worship of holy Catherine of Alexandria were spread only after the Croisades. It would have undergone martyrdom into 307.
Its festival is placed on November 25th (24 in the Orthodoxie under Russian influence) and gives place to various popular celebrations, of which those of the young girls to marry of more than 25 years, called the Catherinettes.
See also: Holy Catherine
Catherine would have been born towards 290 in a noble family from Alexandria, in Egypt. Endowed with a great intelligence, it quickly acquired knowledge which placed it on the level of the largest poets and philosophers of the moment. One night, she saw in dream the Christ and decided to devote her life to him, regarding herself as its promised in marriage. The topic of the mystical marriage is common in the Mediterranean East.
The emperor of Rome, Maximien, come Alexandria, chaired a great pagan festival it. The young girl seizes this occasion to try to lead it to convert with Christianity, but that did nothing but raise its anger. To put it to the test, it imposes to him a philosophical debate with fifty scientists, but with the great spite of the emperor, it succeeds in converting them. Maximien makes them carry out and yet proposes the Mariage in Catherine who refuses with contempt. The emperor then orders to make it torture while using of a machine made up of wheels furnished with points. By a divine miracle, the wheels break on its body, and the points plugs the torturers. Been obstinated, Maximien orders whereas she is decapitated.
A few hundred years later, of the monks of a monastery builds with the foot of the Mont the Sinai, discovered at the top of a mountain close the intact body to a beautiful young woman who was recognized as being that of holy Catherine of Alexandria deposited there by angels. It is at the time of the Croisades that the legend was spread in all the Occident, creating the reason for large a devotion which deeply inspired the artists who represented the holy one with a tricolor Auréole: white for the Virginity, green for knowledge and red for martyrdom. The wheel of its torment is very often represented near it.
The monks of the monastery of Holy-Catherine of the Sinai fûrent the guards of the tomb of the holy one. The members of the Ordre of Holy-Catherine of the Sinai had the task to defend the tomb and the monastery against the enemies of Christianity.
Catherine of Alexandria whose historical existence was questioned by the Catholic church itself of 1961 to 2002 seems with certain historians to be created like a Christian counterpoint with the large pagan philosopher Hypatie of Alexandria which, like it, was virgin and very erudite. This purity allotted to Catherine is registered in her Greek name which means pure .
The devotion with holy Catherine was one of most widespread in Europe, including in the orthodoxe churches. Many churches contained its statue or a portrait generally appearing a wheel. Very many corporations were placed under its patronage: those which used mechanics comprising of the wheels and those of intellect.
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