Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index 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. In 1968, she was dropped from the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church because of doubts she actually existed. 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. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.