DAVID ADAMS looks at the life of St George…
He’s celebrated as the knight who slew the dragon but who was the real St George? And why has he become claimed as a saint important in countries from Georgia to Hungary, Spain to England?
While there is little historic evidence surrounding details of the life of St George, St George was most certainly not the medieval knight he’s sometimes pictured as but rather is believed to have been a Roman soldier who served the Emperor Diocletian and who was eventually executed for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.
A popularised image of St George as the dragon slayer, symbolic of good triumphing over evil. PICTURE: www.istockphoto.com
“We lack a subversive saint who champions the cause of the underdog, the misfit, the little guy who dares to speak out against the powerful…”
– Jonathan Bartley, Ekklesia
Tradition suggests that George was born sometime between 275-281 AD in Anatolia or Cappadocia in what is modern Turkey.
The story goes that following the death of his Christian parents – his father was a Roman official or military officer and his mother was apparently from Lydda in Palestine (where some versions say she took him to live after his father’s death), he went to the imperial city of Nicodemia where he presented himself to the Emperor Diocletian and, thanks to his father’s good service, was welcomed into the army.
George apparently served faithfully and entered the Imperial Guard as well as being promoted to the officer rank of tribune. But trouble came when in 302AD, Emperor Diocletian, urged on by his advisor Galerius, issued an edict aimed at reviving Rome’s pagan traditions. Under the decree, Christian churches were destroyed and Christians were forced to renounce their faith on pain of death.
George refused and approached the emperor about it, making a stand before the court in which he announced he was indeed a Christian and would not renounce his faith.
The Emperor was apparently torn – George was apparently a good soldier – but he clearly got over it for, after George had first given away his material wealth to the poor, he had him first tortured – including on a wheel of swords – in order to get him to renounce his faith (an unsuccessful attempt as it turned out) and then beheaded before Nicomedia’s walls on 23rd April, 303 – the day now celebrated as his feast day.
George was canonised as a saint in 494 AD by Pope Gelasius I and he came back to England with the returning crusaders – and by then he had transformed into the dragon-slaying knight in a symbol of good triumphing over evil.
In 1222 bishops in England declared his feast day a public holiday and he was later adopted as the patron saint of the UK (some say it was after Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415).
There is now a push in England for St George’s Day to be declared a public holiday once again. Jonathan Bartley, writing on the website Ekklesia earlier this year, declared the story of St George – that of an establishment figure who forsook his status and wealth to stand with the persecuted (Christian) minority and eventually paid with his life – as one that “we need to rediscover”.
“We lack a subversive saint who champions the cause of the underdog, the misfit, the little guy who dares to speak out against the powerful…” he wrote.
SOURCES AND FURTHER INFORMATION:
~ www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/12001
~ www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/11944
~ www.newadvent.org/cathen/06453a.htm
