Search Results

Sign in Modify your search

Narrow Your Choices

Format

Type

Articles containing

Life event

Date

Subject

Occupation

Era

Availability

 1-2 of 2 Results  for:

  • Religious Martyr x
  • Religion and Spirituality x
  • Spiritual Communities and Movements x
Clear all

Article

Catherine of Alexandria  

Jeremy Rich

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
31 January 2019

may have been born in Alexandria, Egypt around 290 ce. Though Catherine became identified as a saint in both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian traditions, there is considerable debate over whether or not she even existed. No contemporary historical sources from Catherine’s purported lifetime offer any details about her. The notable Byzantine church historian Eusebius did not mention Catherine of Alexandria in his detailed overview of Christian martyrs killed during the rule of the last Roman emperors who persecuted followers of Jesus prior to the rule of Constantine. Eusebius described in vivid detail the executions of Christian women in Alexandria and celebrated their willingness to give their lives for the faith. However, he never mentioned any particular woman named Catherine. Believers in Catherine’s veracity contended that she was one of the Egyptian female martyrs.

The first accounts of Catherine s life only appear in the eighth century in ...

Article

Maurice, Saint  

Phillipe Wamba

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

According to Christian legend, Saint Maurice (Saint Maurice d'Agaune), the first Christian saint to be explicitly represented as an African, was a primicerius (a high-ranking officer) in the Roman army whose legion was massacred by the Romans in the late third century for refusing to participate in a pagan ritual.

Maurice and his legion, all baptized Christians, were recruited for military service in Thebaid, an Egyptian province on the upper Nile (near the present-day border between Egypt and Sudan). Thebaid, with its capital at Thebes, was the southernmost region of the Roman Empire, then ruled by co-emperors Diocletian and Maximian.

In 287 Maximian commander of the Roman army in Gaul led his troops which included Maurice s legion in a military campaign against insurgents in Gaul On the eve of battle the army camped at Octodurum in what is now Martigny Switzerland and Maximian ...