Anna Wang was a Catholic lay girl who was martyred during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

. She was declared a saint by

John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

. She is one of the

Martyrs of China Chinese Martyrs ( zh, t=中華殉道聖人, s=中华殉道圣人, first=t, w=Chung1-hua2 hsun4-tao4 shêng4-jên2, p=Zhōnghuá xùndào shèngrén) is the name given to a number of members of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox C ...

Early life

Anna was born in 1886 at Machiazhuang,

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. She was born in a poor Christian family. She lost her mother when she was five years old. She was made strong in religion by receiving religious education from the nun Lucy Wang. She was forced to get married by her family at the age of eleven but she fought against it and didn't get married. She grew up as a strong Catholic believer.

Martyrdom

On July 21, 1900, a group of armed members of the

came to Anna’s village to kill the Christians and burn down the church. The Boxers told each Christian to renounce their faith or die. Anna, along with a few other Christians, refused to renounce their faith. Anna and her companions were beheaded, and her body was dumped together with others in a mass grave. She was only 14 years old. Her body was exhumed and given proper burial on November 6, 1901.

Canonisation

She was venerated by

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

on 22 February 1955 and beatified on 17 April. She was canonized and declared a saint by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

along with other

on 1 October 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Anna 1886 births 1900 deaths 19th-century executions by China 20th-century Roman Catholic martyrs 20th-century venerated Christians Catholic martyrs Christian child saints Chinese children Chinese Roman Catholic saints Qing dynasty Christians Executed children People executed by the Qing dynasty People executed by the Qing dynasty by decapitation