21 Facts About Saint Anne

The Dormition of Saint Anne is a minor feast in Eastern Christianity.

Saint Anne is revered in Islam, recognized as a highly spiritual woman and as the mother of Mary.

Saint Anne is not named in the Quran, where she is referred to as "the wife of Imran".

Saint Anne prayed for a child and eventually conceived; her husband, Imran, died before the child was born.

The sister of Saint Anne was Sobe, mother of Elizabeth.

The cult of Saint Anne had developed in northern Europe by the twelfth century.

In Imperial Russia, the Order of St Saint Anne was one of the leading state decorations.

The alleged relics of St Saint Anne were brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 and were kept there in the church of St Sophia as late as 1333.

St Saint Anne's relics have been preserved and venerated in the many cathedrals and monasteries dedicated to her name, for example in Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Greece in the semi-autonomous Mount Athos, and the city of Katerini.

Saint Anne is patroness of unmarried women, housewives, women in labor or who want to be pregnant, grandmothers, mothers and educators.

Saint Anne is a patroness of horseback riders, cabinet-makers and miners.

Saint Anne's womb was considered the source from which these precious metals were mined.

Saint Anne joins her daughter Mary, Joseph, and a young boy who will later become known as John the Baptist in caring for the injured hand of Jesus.

The subject of Joachim and Saint Anne The Meeting at the Golden Gate was a regular component of artistic cycles of the Life of the Virgin.

The Birth of Mary, the Presentation of Mary and the Marriage of the Virgin were usual components of cycles of the Life of the Virgin in which Saint Anne is normally shown here.

Saint Anne is often portrayed wearing red and green, representing love and life.

Saint Anne is never shown as present at the Nativity of Christ, but is frequently shown with the infant Christ in various subjects.

Saint Anne is sometimes believed to be depicted in scenes of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple and the Circumcision of Christ, but in the former case, this likely reflects a misidentification through confusion with Anna the Prophetess.

Saint Anne is not seen with the adult Christ, so was regarded as having died during the youth of Jesus.

Saint Anne is shown as the matriarch of the Holy Kinship, the extended family of Jesus, a popular subject in late medieval Germany; some versions of these pictorial and sculptural depictions include Emerentia who was reputed in the fifteenth century to be Saint Anne's mother.

St Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read, Church of San Giuseppe alla Lungara, Rome.