Annella Zervas

A Hidden Sufferer of the Red River Valley

Anna Cordelia Zervas was born in Moorhead, Minnesota, in 1900 to a devout Catholic family. At fifteen she entered Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, receiving the habit and the name Sister Mary Annella in 1918. She was remembered for her Eucharistic and Marian devotion, her cheerfulness, and her musical talent.

Around 1923, shortly after final profession, she began suffering a mysterious, disfiguring illness; in June 1924 the Mayo Clinic diagnosed pityriasis rubra pilaris, a rare skin disease with no known cure. The disease caused relentless burning, scaling, and sleeplessness, forcing her return to her family home in Moorhead for care. Witnesses recorded that she united her sufferings to Christ rather than despairing.

She died on August 14, 1926, the eve of the Assumption, at age 26, and was buried in her monastery’s cemetery at St. Joseph.

Devotion persisted in the region for a century. In October 2023 Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston opened a preliminary inquiry into her life; the US bishops affirmed the advancement of her cause in November 2024; the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints granted the nihil obstat in 2025; and on October 9, 2025, the diocesan inquiry formally opened in Crookston, making her a Servant of God and potentially the first Minnesota-born candidate for beatification.

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