Who was Saint George? Why is he celebrated around the world?
George of Lydda was a third century venerated Christian and Roman soldier of the Praetorian Guard, serving under the command of Emperor Diocletian. He was famously martyred for his refusal to renounce his Christian faith.
Known as one of the megalomartyrs- the great martyrs, of Fourteen Holy Helpers- St George was deigned a Military Saint during the Crusades, remaining the patron of many nations ever since. For his namesake, a traditional memorial day is celebrated each year upon the 23rd April. St George has served as the patron saint of England, Catalonia, Aragon, Ethiopia, Georgia and the city of Moscow.
But why would this ancient figure remain so prominent in the modern day?
The original source material where we derive much of our information of this Saint arrives to us through fragments from a fifth century Greek manuscript translated from Old Syriac, around 600 AD. Incredibly, this text was first translated into English as late as 1925. The manuscript provisionally entitled The Acts, containing fragments of Mor Gewargis Sahdo (Our Saint George the Martyr) details that George was born in Cappadocia of Anatolia (in modern day Turkey). He encountered early tragedy aged fourteen by the death of his father. Afterward, he travelled with his mother to her hometown in Syria Palaestina. Again, tragedy befell him, as his mother died a few years later, forsaking him an orphan in a foreign land. But being from a fairly noble class of Hellenistic merchants, following the death of his parents, George journeyed to Nicomedia, capital of the Eastern Imperial Empire, enrolling in the Roman army as an officer.
Another source we have is a 6th century Latin text entitled the Passion of Saint George (Passio Sancti Georgii). This manuscript accounts that George lived his life and died in the Eastern Anatolian region of Melitene in Cappadocia. This text specifies that his martyrdom was achieved from surviving twenty tortures over the course of seven years, all the while, refusing to renounce his faith. It states that George converted '40,900 pagans' to Christianity from his deeds. The text further specifies that it was Dacian, 'Emperor of the Persians', who sentenced George to death.
There is an association made of Dacian with Emperor Diocletian (284-305AD) who reigned the Eastern (Roman) Empire. A highly successful military commander, Emperor Diocletian defeated the Sarmatian and Carpi (285-299 AD), meanwhile pushing back the Alamanni (a confederation of Germanic tribes along the Upper Rhine) and later on defeating the 'usurpers' of Egypt between 288 and 298. Diocletian commanded a highly successful campaign against the Persian Sasanid Empire, sacking their capital city of Ctesiphon. In the proceeding course of events the Emperor subsequently negotiated a settlement that secured the Eastern Roman Empire a temporary peace against his neighboring enemies.
It is under Diocletian, that George is believed to have suffered the same fate as many individuals in the period known as the Christian persecutions. These persecutions spread throughout the Roman Empire in the 1st century, lasting over three hundred years until the conversion of Emperor Constantine. Christianity was an ideological clash with the Empires ancient Hellenistic heritage, consisting of a pagan polytheistic tradition and imperial cult. The state and civil authorities persecuted the Christians with treasonous conspiracy and outlawed any communions and meeting of it's members, if caught, punishable by a torturous renouncement of the religion unto death.
The date of 23rd April 303AD marks the event taking place in either Diospolis or Nicomedia, where George was decapitated by the city wall. One woman nearby who witnessed his execution is said to have eventually persuaded Diocletian's wife, the Empress Alexandra of Rome, to convert to Christianity. She too would suffer the fate of George as an early Christian martyr.
A church was constructed in Lydda shortly after around this time, during the reign of Emperor Constantine, for 'a man of the highest distinction'. This is believed to be the first veneration of George. A veneration that spread from Lydda throughout Syria Palaestina into Lebanon and across the Byzantine Empire, cementing east of the Black Sea, in modern Georgia. In 494 AD Pope Gelasius canonized George into Sainthood.
To this day, the remains of Saint George are claimed to buried in Lod of Israel, at the Church of Saint George.
Another Candidate for George?
In terms of the legend of George the story derives from Greek and Latin sources, circa 5th and 6th centuries. The addition of the dragon legend stems from the 11th century. Belgian Jesuit scholar Hippolyte Delehaye of the Bollandists identified a palimpsest with reference to Saint George, tracing it to the fifth century. A century before, Eusebius composed a Church history.
However, Edward Gibbon (II:23:5) argued the legend and veneration of St George could be another famous Christian figure of the period, George of Cappadocia. He was a Christian Arian of humble beginnings, who rose in educational prominence to later tutor the young future Emperor Julian the Apostate. George of Cappadocia was opponent and rival of Archbishop Athanasius of Alexandria I, whom most bitterly despised George for 'intruding' upon the throne of the Patriarch of Alexandria in 356.
To further upon Gibbon's theory, we can extract an account from Roman soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330 to 391-400?) in his Res Gestae. (This is Latin chronicle of the history of Rome from Emperor Nerva to the death of Emperor Valens in the battle of Hadrianopolis). Marcellinus accounts that George was born in Epophania in Cilcia, Anatolia; suggesting his heritage was native to Cappadocian. A contemporary of the time was the 4th century Archbishop of Constantinople, Gregory of Nazianzus, who described George as 'unlearned', but amending this with a 'very large and ample library', stored with historical, philosophical and rhetorical books.
In 356 AD, following the declaration from Emperor Constantius II that Archbishop Athanasius I should be retired from his position and sent into exile, for his stance against the Arianists, an attack upon the church of Alexandria was ordered. Having been seized, Athanasius was told that George would be assuming his former throne. It was during Lent when the Roman soldiers escorted George into Alexandria. This coup d'état resulted in a reign that portrays a discouraging account of George of Cappadocia, now Archbishop of Alexandria. He was described as 'a violent and avaricious man', 'tyrannical, coercive and corrupt', an 'extreme Arian' despised by both Orthodox and moderate Arians.
A few years later, on 3rd November 361 AD, following the death of Emperor Constantius II, a group of pagan and Orthodox Alexandrian's seized their moment, in a coup, imprisoning Archbishop George in captivity. In just over a month, on Christmas eve 361 AD, George was dragged out of his prison-cell by a crowd, alongside with two of his close imperial guards, Diodorus and Dracontius. These three were whipped beaten throughout the city. They were eventually murdered by the mob in the street. Their corpses flung over the backs of camels that rode unto the coast, where their bodies were burnt to ashes and cast into the sea, preventing any entombment and future veneration into martyrdom.
Since Gibbon speculated upon this potential figure as the historical St George, modern historians such as J.B Bury- whom edited the preface to the 1906 edition of Gibbons The Decline and Fall -quoted this notion of Gibbon's, 'has nothing to be said for it'.
Whoever the historical Saint George was, his veneration and status in English culture, at least, we can trace. He is mentioned by Bede, and most prominently by King Alfred, whom alludes to the Saint in his will. These are the earliest records of an Anglic attachment and veneration of the Saint to the Kingdom. The earliest English church dedication to the Saint is traced to Fordington in Dorset.
It was a few more centuries until the Saint became infused by the chivalrous legends of the high medieval period. The legend of George and the Dragon arises from a Georgian source, arriving in Catholic Europe during the 12th century-around the time of the chivalrous Arthurian legends. The primary source it derives from is a collected manuscript of hagiographies, from 1259 to 1266, by Jacobus de Voragine, then Archbishop of Genoa.
From these legends, in England, Saint George rose to the position of patron Saint. Culminating in the Reformation under King Edward VI, whom abolished all saints from being portrayed on official Royal flags and banners: except for one; Saint George.
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