A citizen of Alexandria, Egypt, St. Catherine died around 310 AD, in one of the persecutions of Christians that were so common in the Roman Empire. She refused to renounce her Christian faith and in her trials she converted many to Christianity. She was tortured on a spiked wheel which broke miraculously when she was placed upon it. Hence the broken Catherine Wheel in church symbolism. Eventually she was beheaded and her body is reputedly buried in a monastery on Mount Sinai.