Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/83

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ST. ANNA
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contemporaries. Her real name is unknown. She took that of Anna on becoming a nun in a convent at the foot of the mountain on which St. Stephen lived as a hermit, after he had been persecuted by the iconoclasts at Constantinople. In 754, refusing to support a false accusation against Stephen, she was cruelly scourged by order of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, and put in prison at Constantinople, where she soon died, in consequence of the ill usage she received. She is mentioned by Surius in the life of St. Stephen, Oct. 28. The Bollandists promise more information when their calendar comes down to her day. This is perhaps the saint called Anna Greca by Guénebault, who says she was an abbess of the Order of the Acémètes, and that she is represented holding a statuette, doubtless to denote that she adhered to the use of holy images, notwithstanding the persecution of the iconoclasts.

St. Anna (11) Euphemian, Oct. 29. 8th and beginning of 9th century. A native of Constantinople. After the death of her husband and children, she gave all her property to the poor, and, disguised as a man, obtained admission to a monastery on Mount Olympus, where she lived several years, under the name of Euphemian. She was much persecuted by a fellow-monk, changed her residence several times, and died a recluse at Constantinople. Her story, from the Meneas of the Greek Church, is given at considerable length, with notes, by the Bollandists, who do not seem to think it reliable. AA.SS.

St. Anna (12), July 23. † c. 918. V. of Leucada, or Leucata, a promontory of Epirus, or Bithynia. She was of noble birth. After the death of her parents, the Emperor Basil, the Macedonian, desired her to accept a husband of his choosing; but she chose rather to lead a celibate ascetic life. She was about seventy-eight years of age when she died. Perier, in AA.SS.

St. Anna (13). Grand-princess of Russia. 963-1011. There are many contradictions in the accounts of this princess, and it is doubtful whether she should be placed among the saints. More information regarding her is to be found in the histories cited at the end of this article.

Anna was born, of wicked parents, at Constantinople in 963, a few days before the death of her father, Romanus II., Emperor of the East. Her elder sister, Theophano, married Otho II., king of Germany and Emperor of the West (see Adelaide (3)). Romanus II. was succeeded by his sons, Basil II. and Constantine VIII., who reigned together. In their time Anna married, with considerable repugnance, St. Vladimir (monarch of Russia, grandson of St. Olga), to make peace between the Greek empire and their dangerous neighbours, and still more with the object of winning him and his immense country over to the Christian faith. As a condition of his marriage, he put away his other wives, and deposed his god Perune. He was threatened with blindness, and Anna promised him that his sight should be restored if he would be baptized. He complied, taking the name of Basil, and was immediately cured. He then built a church in Kief, dedicated it in the name of St. Basil, and enforced his new religion with all the determination he had previously shown in other matters. His life, after baptism, was as strict as it had before been dissolute. He died 1015. Anna died 1011. He is called Isapostolos, and has also been called the New Solomon, not from his wisdom, but from the great number of his wives. He was father of Yaroslav, whose wife was St. Anna (14). Lebeau, Histoire du Bas Empire, xvi. 57, etc. Martinov, Græco-Slav. Calendar. Karamsin, Histoire de Russie, i. 267-283.

St. Anna (14), Grand-princess of Russia, Feb. 10, and, with her son St. Vladimir, Oct. 4 (Ingardas, Ingebiorg, Ingigerda, Irene). She was daughter of Olaf Skoetkonung, king of Sweden, who gave her for dowry the town of Aldeigaburg, or Old Ladoga. She took the name of Irene at her baptism, and that of Anna with the monastic habit, shortly before her death. She was the wife of Yaroslav the Great, son of the first St. Vladimir and father of the second, who, in 1015, succeeded his father as