Catherine Doherty

Catherine Doherty CM
Catherine Doherty, 1974
Born	Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine Екатерина Фёдоровна Колышкина August 15, 1896 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Died	December 14, 1985 (aged 89) Combermere, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Russian Canadian
Occupation	Social activist, writer, foundress of Madonna House Apostolate
Title	Baroness
Spouse(s)	Boris de Hueck (m. 1912–43) Eddie Doherty (m. 1943–75)
Children	George de Hueck
Parent(s)	Theodore and Emma Kolyschkine
Website	www.catherinedoherty.org

Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine de Hueck Doherty CM, better known as Catherine Doherty (August 15, 1896 – December 14, 1985), was a Roman Catholic social worker and foundress of the Madonna House Apostolate. A pioneer of social justice and a renowned national speaker, Doherty was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, best-selling author of dozens of books, and a dedicated wife and mother. Her cause for canonization as a saint is under consideration by the Catholic Church.

Doherty was born Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine (Екатерина Фёдоровна Колышкина) in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire. Her parents, Fyodor and Emma Thomson Kolyschkine, belonged to the minor nobility and were devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church who had their child baptized in St. Petersburg on September 15, 1896. She was not baptized on the same day that she was born because her mother was worried she might get a disease as she had been born on a train. Schooled abroad due to her father's job, she had an exposure to the Catholic Church in the form of her schooling in Alexandria (Egypt) where her father, an aristocrat, had been posted by the government. Her family returned to St. Petersburg in 1910, where she was enrolled in the prestigious Princess Obolensky Academy. In 1912, aged 15, she married her first cousin, Baron Boris de Hueck (1889–1947).

At the outbreak of World War I, Baroness de Hueck became a Red Cross nurse at the front, experiencing the horrors of battle firsthand. On her return to St. Petersburg, she and Boris barely escaped the turmoil of the Russian Revolution with their lives, nearly starving to death as refugees in Finland. Together they made their way to England, where de Hueck was received into the Roman Catholic Church on November 27, 1919.