Saint Anna Wang was a young Chinese lay girl and virgin martyr who gave her life for Christ during the Boxer Rebellion at just fourteen years of age. Her witness shines as a powerful example of youthful courage, purity, and total fidelity to the Catholic faith in the face of brutal persecution.​

Historical background

The life and martyrdom of Saint Anna Wang must be understood against the backdrop of the Boxer Rebellion in northern China at the turn of the twentieth century. This violent movement combined nationalism, superstition, and hostility toward foreigners and Chinese converts, leading to the murder of thousands of Christians, both missionary and local faithful. The Boxers saw Christianity as a “foreign religion” undermining traditional culture and therefore targeted Christian villages, churches, and schools in a wave of terror.​

In Hebei province, where Anna lived, Catholicism had taken root through the work of missionaries and generations of Chinese converts. Many families—like Anna’s—had embraced the faith deeply, often at great cost and in the face of social ostracism and suspicion from their neighbors. When the Boxer violence intensified in 1900, whole Christian communities were arrested, tortured, and offered the same cruel choice: deny Christ and live, or profess Him and die as martyrs.​

Early life and family

Anna Wang was born in 1886 in the region of Xingtai, Hebei province, into a Catholic family that had already suffered and persevered for its faith. Her Chinese name (Wang Yana) is remembered in the Church as the name of a child who combined simplicity with heroic love for Jesus and Our Lady. She lost her mother at a very young age, and this early sorrow seems to have deepened her interior life and her reliance on God.​

Raised in a Catholic village environment, Anna was baptized and catechized from childhood. Those who knew her remembered that, even as a little girl, she loved prayer, spent time in church, and had great devotion to Christ and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is also described as modest, obedient, and serious about virtue, not afraid to stand apart from worldly customs if they conflicted with her faith.​

Vocation to purity and courage

Anna’s faith became especially visible around the age of eleven, when relatives arranged a marriage for her in keeping with local custom. Although she was very young, Anna clearly understood both the sacramental nature of marriage and the value of consecrating her virginity to Christ. She firmly refused the arranged marriage, declaring that she wanted to belong entirely to Jesus and to remain pure for Him, a decision that surprised and even angered some of her elders.​

This refusal was not simply stubbornness but an expression of a deep sense of vocation. In an environment where girls had little social power, Anna’s choice showed interior freedom and a willingness to suffer misunderstanding in order to follow what she believed God desired. The same radical fidelity and inner strength that made her reject the arranged marriage would later sustain her in the face of torture and death during the persecution.​

The outbreak of persecution

In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion struck Hebei with ferocity, and Catholic communities like Anna’s were quickly targeted. Armed groups of Boxers surrounded Christian villages, burned churches and houses, and dragged Catholics—men, women and children—before local leaders to be interrogated and threatened. The demand was always the same: abandon “the foreign religion,” trample on Christian symbols, and offer sacrifices to the old gods, or be killed as enemies of the nation.​

Anna and other Catholics from her area were seized and locked together in rooms, awaiting their fate. One account describes how some Christians were shut in an “East Room” while others were placed elsewhere, and throughout this time the Boxers tried to break the prisoners’ resolve by terror, hunger and fear. Even in such dire conditions, Anna encouraged those around her, reminding them that the sufferings of this life are nothing compared to the glory of heaven promised to the faithful.​

The trial of faith

During their imprisonment, Anna’s own stepmother—terrified by the threats—chose to save her life by denying Christ. This was a severe test for Anna, who loved her family, but she refused to follow the example of apostasy even when it meant losing the support of those closest to her. Standing before her elders, she declared that she would rather die than abandon her faith, choosing the “narrow way” of the Gospel with a maturity beyond her years.​

Witnesses report that as night fell, the Boxers lit candles they had stolen from the village church. Looking at the candle flames, Anna told her companions how beautiful even this little light was, but how unimaginably greater the glory of heaven would be for those who persevered in love of Christ. She led the other captives in evening prayers—prayers which, for many of them, would be their last on earth, preparing their souls for martyrdom.​

Martyrdom: “I am a Catholic. I will never deny God.”

Eventually the Christians were led out to be killed, including mothers with their children and even infants. The atrocities committed were horrifying: some victims were mutilated, others were slain before the eyes of their loved ones, all to force the survivors to deny the faith. In the midst of this horror, Anna knelt and continued to pray, strengthening the others and fixing her gaze on Christ rather than on the cruelty unfolding around her.​

One Boxer approached Anna and offered her life if she would deny Christ and abandon the Church. She refused firmly, proclaiming variations of the words remembered by multiple sources: “I am a Catholic. I will never deny God. It is better for me to die” or “I am a Christian and I shall die a Christian.” Enraged by her courage, the executioner began to torture her, cutting flesh from her shoulder and then severing her left arm, yet Anna remained kneeling, serene, and continued to confess her faith.​

According to eyewitness accounts, she spoke of heaven as if the doors were open before her, saying words like “The door of heaven is open,” while softly repeating the Holy Name of Jesus. At last she bowed her head and extended her neck to receive the fatal blow; in one swift movement, she was beheaded and thus entered the glory she had contemplated. She was only fourteen years old, a child in the eyes of the world, yet fully mature in the heroism of charity and fidelity to Christ.​

Burial and early veneration

After the massacre, the bodies of the martyrs, including Anna’s, were left dishonored by their killers. Later, when the violence subsided, fellow Christians recovered what they could and buried the remains reverently, regarding these victims as true martyrs for the faith. In due time, Anna’s story began to circulate among Chinese Catholics and missionaries, inspiring deep devotion, especially among the young and among women seeking to live purity and courage.​

Reports of her serenity under torture and of her final prayers spread widely. The local Church treasured her memory as part of a wider cloud of witnesses—the many Chinese martyrs who had remained faithful despite state pressure, social rejection, and savage violence. These testimonies helped eventually to form the basis for the Church’s formal recognition of her martyrdom and sanctity in the twentieth century.​

Beatification and canonization

The cause of the Chinese martyrs, including Anna Wang, advanced gradually as the Church gathered documentation and testimonies about their lives and deaths. Pope Pius XII recognized the heroic nature of their witness in the mid‑twentieth century, and Anna was among those venerated and then beatified with a larger group of Chinese martyrs. This official recognition confirmed what the faithful in China had long believed: that she had truly shed her blood out of love for Christ and in defense of the Catholic faith.​

On 1 October 2000, Pope Saint John Paul II canonized Anna Wang together with 119 other martyrs of China, raising them to the honors of the altar for the universal Church. This canonization highlighted the deep roots of Christianity in China and the extraordinary witness offered by lay people, catechists, children and clergy throughout its turbulent history. In liturgical calendars and devotional materials she is now celebrated as Saint Anna Wang, virgin and martyr, a model for young people and for all who face pressure to compromise their faith.​

Spiritual message and patronage

Saint Anna Wang speaks powerfully to a world where many young people experience pressure to conform, to abandon moral values, or to treat faith as something optional or private. Her simple yet absolute “no” to apostasy and “yes” to Christ reveals how grace can make even a teenager strong enough to face ridicule, rejection and even physical violence rather than offend God. She shows that holiness is not reserved for the elderly or learned, but is fully possible for the young who give their hearts to Jesus and Mary.​

She is often invoked as a patroness of youth, of young women, of Christians facing persecution, and of those striving for purity of heart. Her life encourages Catholics to be faithful in daily small sacrifices, so that—if ever a great test should come—the heart is already trained to say with her, “I am a Catholic. I will never deny God.” In a particular way, she invites the Church to pray for the Church in China and for all believers who today suffer harassment, discrimination or violence for belonging to Christ.​

Prayer to Saint Anna Wang

Saint Anna Wang, brave virgin and martyr,
you loved Jesus with all your heart and chose Him above every earthly promise or fear.​
You refused to deny your Catholic faith, even when threatened with torture and death,
and with your last breath you proclaimed that the door of heaven was open for you.​

Teach us to love Christ with the same purity, courage, and trust.
Help young people to resist every pressure to compromise the Gospel,
and to remain faithful in prayer, in chastity, and in obedience to God’s will.​
Obtain for us the grace to stand firm in trials,
to forgive those who persecute us,
and to bear witness to Jesus with humility and joy in our daily lives.​

Saint Anna Wang, intercede for the Church in China
and for all Christians who suffer for the name of Christ today.
May your example strengthen them with hope,
and may your prayers help us all to reach the heavenly homeland
where you now rejoice with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.