Emmerich, Anna Katharina (1774–1824)
Emmerich, Anna Katharina (1774–1824)
German Augustinian nun and mystic. Name variations: Emmerick. Born in Westphalia in 1774; died in 1824.
Following an extremely pious youth, Anna Katharina Emmerich became celebrated for her visions of the Passion of Christ, for her revelations, and for bearing the stigmata (the wounds of Christ). When the poet Clemens Brentano came to the monastery of Dülmen to record her visions in 1818, she declared that his coming was a fulfillment of the will of God as it had been revealed to her in a vision. The following year, her gifts were investigated by an episcopal commission as well as by a commission appointed by the government, and they were attested as genuine. Her life and supernatural experiences were subsequently described in a biography by Brentano (Munich, 1852) and in another by Abbé Cazales (Paris, 1870).