Edith Stein was born into a devout Jewish family in Breslau in 1891 and became a respected philosopher, studying under Edmund Husserl and working as one of the first women to earn a doctorate in philosophy in Germany. Raised without personal religious practice as an adult, she experienced a gradual conversion that led her to be baptized Catholic in 1922, deeply influenced by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Ávila.
She entered the Discalced Carmelite order in 1933, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, as the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews intensified around her. She was arrested in the Netherlands, where her convent had transferred her for safety, and deported to Auschwitz, where she was killed in the gas chambers in 1942. She was canonized in 1998 and declared a co-patroness of Europe the following year.
Saint Edith Stein
Philosopher, Carmelite and Martyr
A German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism, became a Discalced Carmelite nun, and was murdered at Auschwitz for her Jewish ancestry.
- Born
- 1891
- Died
- 1942
- Birthplace
- Breslau, Germany (modern Wrocław, Poland)
- Died in
- Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Poland
- Country
- Germany
- Canonised
- 1998-10-11
- Century
- 20th century
Categories
Why People Pray to Saint Edith Stein
Saint Edith Stein is invoked by philosophers, converts, and those seeking to reconcile intellectual life with deep faith, and is remembered as a witness against antisemitism and religious persecution.
