Portal:Catholic Church/Patron Archive/August 9

Edith Stein OCD (in religion Teresa Benedicta of the Cross; 12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. Edith Stein was murdered in the gas chamber at Birkenau on 9 August 1942, and is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church; she is also one of six patron saints of Europe.

She was born into an observant Jewish family, but had become an agnostic by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915, she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital. After completing her doctoral thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1916, she obtained an assistantship there to Edmund Husserl. (Full article...)
Attributes: Yellow Star of David on a Discalced Carmelite nun's habit, flames, a book
Patronage: Europe; loss of parents; converted Jews; martyrs; World Youth Day
See also: Candida Maria of Jesus