Catholic Encyclopedia – Saint Anne

detail of an engraving of Saint Anne educating the Blessed Virgin Mary while Saint Joachim watches; early 18th century by Pierre-Imbert Drevet; Wellcome Library, London, England; swiped from Wikimedia CommonsArticle

Anne (Hebrew, Hannah, grace; also spelled Ann, Anne, Anna) is the traditional name of the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

All our information concerning the names and lives of Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature, the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Protoevangelium of James. Though the earliest form of the latter, on which directly or indirectly the other two seem to be based, goes back to about A.D. 150, we can hardly accept as beyond doubt its various statements on its sole authority. In the Orient the Protoevangelium had great authority and portions of it were read on the feasts of Mary by the Greeks, Syrians, Copts, and Arabians. In the Occident, however, it was rejected by the Fathers of the Church until its contents were incorporated by Jacobus de Voragine in his “Golden Legend” in the thirteenth century. From that time on the story of Saint Anne spread over the West and was amply developed, until Saint Anne became one of the most popular saints also of the Latin Church.

The Protoevangelium gives the following account: In Nazareth there lived a rich and pious couple, Joachim and Hannah. They were childless. When on a feast day Joachim presented himself to offer sacrifice in the temple, he was repulsed by a certain Ruben, under the pretext that men without offspring were unworthy to be admitted. Whereupon Joachim, bowed down with grief, did not return home, but went into the mountains to make his plaint to God in solitude. Also Hannah, having learned the reason of the prolonged absence of her husband, cried to the Lord to take away from her the curse of sterility, promising to dedicate her child to the service of God. Their prayers were heard; an angel came to Hannah and said: “Hannah, the Lord has looked upon thy tears; thou shalt conceive and give birth and the fruit of thy womb shall be blessed by all the world”. The angel made the same promise to Joachim, who returned to his wife. Hannah gave birth to a daughter whom she called Miriam (Mary). Since this story is apparently a reproduction of the biblical account of the conception of Samuel, whose mother was also called Hannah, even the name of the mother of Mary seems to be doubtful.

The renowned Father John of Eck of Ingolstadt, in a sermon on Saint Anne (published at Paris in 1579), pretends to know even the names of the parents Saint Anne. He calls them Stollanus and Emerentia. He says that Saint Anne was born after Stollanus and Emerentia had been childless for twenty years; that Saint Joachim died soon after the presentation of Mary in the temple; that Saint Anne then married Cleophas, by whom she became the mother of Mary Cleophae (the wife of Alphaeus and mother of the Apostles James the Lesser, Simon and Judas, and of Joseph the Just); after the death of Cleophas she is said to have married Salomas, to whom she bore Maria Salomae (the wife of Zebedaeus and mother of the Apostles John and James the Greater). The same spurious legend is found in the writings of Gerson and of many others. There arose in the sixteenth century an animated controversy over the marriages of Saint Anne, in which Baronius and Bellarmine defended her monogamy. The Greek Menaea (25 July) call the parents of Saint Anne Mathan and Maria, and relate that Salome and Elizabeth, the mother of Saint John the Baptist, were daughters of two sisters of Saint Anne. According to Ephiphanius it was maintained even in the fourth century by some enthusiasts that Saint Anne conceived without the action of man. This error was revived in the West in the fifteenth century. (Anna concepit per osculum Joachimi.) In 1677 the Holy See condemned the error of Imperiali who taught that Saint Anne in the conception and birth of Mary remained virgin (Benedict XIV, De Festis, II, 9). In the Orient the cult of Saint Anne can be traced to the fourth century. Justinian I (died 565) had a church dedicated to her. The canon of the Greek Office of Saint Anne was composed by Saint Theophanes (died 817), but older parts of the Office are ascribed to Anatolius of Byzantium (d. 458). Her feast is celebrated in the East on the 25th day of July, which may be the day of the dedication of her first church at Constantinople or the anniversary of the arrival of her supposed relics in Constantinople (710). It is found in the oldest liturgical document of the Greek Church, the Calendar of Constantinople (first half of the eighth century). The Greeks keep a collective feast of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne on the 9th of September. In the Latin Church Saint Anne was not venerated, except, perhaps, in the south of France, before the thirteenth century. Her picture, painted in the eighth century, which was found lately in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, owes its origin to Byzantine influence. Her feast, under the influence of the “Golden Legend”, is first found (26 July) in the thirteenth century, e.g. at Douai (in 1291), where a foot of Saint Anne was venerated (feast of translation, 16 September). It was introduced in England by Urban VI, 21 November 1378, from which time it spread all over the Western Church. It was extended to the universal Latin Church in 1584.

The supposed relics of Saint Anne were brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 and were still kept there in the church of Saint Sophia in 1333. The tradition of the church of Apt in southern France pretends that the body of Saint Anne was brought to Apt by Saint Lazarus, the friend of Christ, was hidden by Saint Auspicius (died 398), and found again during the reign of Charlemagne (feast, Monday after the octave of Easter); these relics were brought to a magnificent chapel in 1664 (feast, 4 May). The head of Saint Anne was kept at Mainz up to 1510, when it was stolen and brought to Düren in Rheinland. Saint Anne is the patroness of Brittany. Her miraculous picture (feast, 7 March) is venerated at Notre Dame d’Auray, Diocese of Vannes. Also in Canada, where she is the principal patron of the province of Quebec, the shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré is well known. Saint Anne is patroness of women in labour; she is represented holding the Blessed Virgin Mary in her lap, who again carries on her arm the child Jesus. She is also patroness of miners, Christ being compared to gold, Mary to silver.

MLA Citation

  • Frederick G. Holweck. “Saint Anne”. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913. CatholicSaints.Info. 4 May 2012. Web. 27 February 2017. <>