Saint George
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St George
Born
between ca. AD
275 and
281Died
ca. AD
303,
Lydda,
PalestineVenerated in
ChristianityMajor
shrineChurch of Saint George,
LodFeastApril 23AttributesLance, Dragon, Horseback Rider, Knighthood,
St George's CrossPatronageAmersfoort,
Netherlands;
Aragon; agricultural workers;
archers; armourers;
Beirut,
Lebanon;
Scouts; butchers; Cappadocia;
Catalonia; cavalry; chivalry;
Constantinople;
Corinthians (Brazilian soccer team);
Crusaders;
England (by Pope Benedict XIV); equestrians;
Ethiopia; farmers;
Ferrara, Italy; field workers;
Genoa;
Georgia;
Gozo;
Bulgaria;
Greece; Haldern,
Germany; Heide;
herpes; horsemen; horses; husbandmen; knights; lepers;
leprosy;
Lithuania;
Lod;
Malta;
Modica,
Sicily;
Moscow;
Order of the Garter;
Palestine; Palestinian Christians; plague;
Portugal;
Ptuj,
Slovenia; riders; saddle makers; sheep; shepherds; skin diseases; soldiers; syphilis;
Teutonic Knights;
Venice [1]Saints PortalIn
Christian hagiography Saint George - The Saint who killed the Dragon (ca. 275-281–
April 23,
303) was a
soldier of the
Roman Empire, from Anatolia, now modern day Turkey, who was venerated as an Islamic and
Christian martyr. Saint George is the most venerated saint in the
Eastern Orthodox Church and
Oriental Orthodox Churches. Immortalised in the tale of
George and the Dragon, he is the
patron saint of
Canada,
Catalonia,
England,
Ethiopia,
Georgia,
Greece,
Montenegro,
Portugal,
Serbia, the cities of
Istanbul,
Ljubljana and
Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organisations and disease sufferers.
Contents[
hide]
1 Life2 Veneration as a martyr3 Hymn of Saint George4 Sources5 George and the Dragon6 Iconography7 Later depictions and occurrences8 Colours9 Patronage and remembrance9.1 England9.2 Palestine9.3 Lebanon9.4 Georgia9.5 Bulgaria9.6 Iberian Peninsula9.7 Greece9.8 Brazil9.9 United States9.10 India9.11 Freemasons9.12 Scouting9.13 Same sex matrimony9.14 Other10 Muslim world11 Interfaith shrine12 Etymology13 Notes14 See also15 References16 External links//
[
edit] Life
There are no historical sources on Saint George.
[1] The
legend that follows is synthesized from early and late
hagiographical sources, such as the
Golden Legend, which is the most familiar version in English, since
William Caxton's first translation.
George was born to a Christian family during the late
3rd century. His father was from
Cappadocia and served as an officer of the
Roman army. His mother was from
Lydda,
Iudaea (now
Lod,
Israel). She returned to her native city as a
widow along with her young son, where she provided him with an education.
St. George being broken on the wheel
The youth followed his father's example by joining the
army soon after
coming of age. He proved to be a good soldier and consequently rose through the
military ranks of the time. By his late twenties he had gained the title of Tribunus (
Tribune) and then Comes (
Count), at which time George was stationed in
Nicomedia as a member of the personal guard attached to
Roman Emperor Diocletian.
According to the hagiography, in 303 Diocletian issued an edict authorizing the systematic persecution of Christians across the Empire. The
emperor Galerius was supposedly responsible for this decision and would continue the persecution during his own reign (
305–
311). George was ordered to take part in the persecution but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticized the imperial decision. An enraged Diocletian ordered the
torture of this apparent
traitor, and his
execution.
After various tortures, beginning with being lacerated on a wheel of swords, George was executed by
decapitation before Nicomedia's
defensive wall on
April 23,
303. The witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians as well, and so they joined George in martyrdom. His body was returned to Lydda for
burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.
[
edit] Veneration as a martyr
A 15th-century icon of St. George from
NovgorodScenes from the life of St. George, Kremikovtsi Monastery, Bulgaria
A church built in
Lydda during the reign of
Constantine I (reigned 306–337), was consecrated to "a man of the highest distinction", according to the church history of
Eusebius of Caesarea; the name of the patron was not disclosed, but later he was asserted to have been George. The church was destroyed in
1010 but was later rebuilt and dedicated to Saint George by the
Crusaders. In 1191 and during the conflict known as the
Third Crusade (
1189–
1192), the church was again destroyed by the forces of
Saladin, Sultan of the
Ayyubid dynasty (reigned
1171–
1193). A new church was erected in
1872 and is still standing.
During the fourth century the veneration of George spread from Palestine to the rest of the
Eastern Roman Empire, though the martyr is not mentioned in the Syriac
Breviarium[2] and
Georgia. In Georgia the feast day on November 23 is credited to
St Nino of
Cappadocia, who in Georgian hagiography is a relative of St George, credited with bringing Christianity to the Georgians in the fourth century. By the fifth century the
cult of Saint George had reached the
Western Roman Empire as well: in
494, George was canonised as a
saint by
Pope Gelasius I, among those "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to
God." According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the earliest text preserving fragments of George's narrative is in an
Acta Sanctorum identified by
Hippolyte Delehaye of the scholarly
Bollandists to be a
palimpsest of the fifth century. The compiler of this
Acta, according to Delehaye "confused the martyr with his namesake, the celebrated
George of Cappadocia, the
Arian intruder into the see of Alexandria and enemy of St.
Athanasius".
[
edit] Hymn of Saint George
A commonly sung
tropar in the
Romanian Orthodox Church and in other
Eastern Orthodoxy churches is the Hymn of St. George:
"Liberator of captives,and defender of the poor,physician of the sick,and champion of kings,O trophy-bearer,and Great Martyr George,intercede withChrist our God thatour souls be saved."
[
edit] Sources
A critical edition of the Syriac Acta of Saint George, accompanied by an annoted English translation was published by E.W. Brooks (1863-1955) in 1925. The hagiography was originally written in Greek.
[
edit] George and the Dragon
One of the earliest extant depictions of St. George survives in a church at the Russian village of
Ladoga.
Main article:
Saint George and the DragonThe episode of St George and the Dragon was Eastern in origin,
[3] brought back with the
Crusaders and retold with the courtly appurtenances belonging to the
genre of Romance (Loomis; Whatley). The earliest known depiction of the
mytheme is from early eleventh-century
Cappadocia (Whately), (in the
iconography of the
Eastern Orthodox Church, George had been depicted as a
soldier since at least the seventh century); the earliest known surviving narrative text is an eleventh-century Georgian text (Whatley).
In the fully-developed Western version, a dragon makes its nest at the
spring that provides water for the city of
Cyrene in Libya or the city of
Lydda, depending on the source. Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, in order to collect water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon a
human sacrifice. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happened to be the
princess. The
monarch begs for her life with no result. She is offered to the dragon, but there appears the saint on his travels. He faces the dragon, slays it and rescues the princess. The grateful citizens abandon their ancestral
paganism and convert to Christianity.
The dragon motif was first combined with the standardized Passio Georgii in
Vincent of Beauvais' encyclopedic Speculum historale and then in
Jacobus de Voragine,
Golden Legend, which guaranteed its popularity in the later Middle Ages as a literary and pictorial subject (Whatly).
The parallels with
Perseus and
Andromeda are inescapable. In the
allegorical reading, the dragon embodies a suppressed
pagan cult.
[4] The story has roots that predate Christianity. Examples such as
Sabazios, the
sky father, who was usually depicted riding on horseback, and
Zeus's defeat of
Typhon the
Titan in
Greek mythology, along with examples from
Germanic and
Vedic traditions, have led a number of historians, such as Loomis, to suggest that George is a
Christianized version of older deities in Indo-European culture.
In the medieval romances, the lance with which St George slew the dragon was called
Ascalon, named after the city of
Ashkelon in Palestine, now part of modern day Israel.
[5]Saint George and the Dragon,
Paolo Uccello, c.
1470. This small one has the look of a
griffin or a
wyvern.
In Sweden, the princess rescued by Saint George is held to represent the kingdom of Sweden, while the dragon represents an invading army. Several sculptures of Saint George battling the dragon can be found in Stockholm, the earliest inside Storkyrkan ("The Great Church") in the Old Town.
[
edit] Iconography
St. George is most commonly depicted in early
icons,
mosaics and
frescos wearing armour contemporary with the depiction, executed in gilding and silver colour, intended to identify him as a
Roman soldier. After the
Fall of Constantinople and the association of St George with the
crusades, he is more often portrayed mounted upon a white horse. At the same time St George began to be associated with
St. Demetrius, another early
soldier saint. When the two saints are portrayed together mounted upon horses, they may be likened to earthly manifestations of the archangels
Michael and
Gabriel. St George is always depicted in Eastern traditions upon a white horse and St. Demetrius on a red horse
[6] St George can also be identified in the act of spearing a dragon, unlike St Demetrius, who is sometimes shown spearing a human figure, understood to represent
Maximian.
[
edit] Later depictions and occurrences
Moscow has probably more sculptures of St. George slaying the dragon than any other city: the iconography is even represented on
Moscow's (and Russia's) coat of arms.
During the early
2nd millennium, George came to be seen as the model of
chivalry, and during this time was depicted in works of
literature, such as the
medieval romances.
Jacobus de Voragine,
Archbishop of
Genoa, compiled the Legenda Sanctorum, (Readings of the Saints) also known as Legenda Aurea (the
Golden Legend) for its worth among readers. Its 177 chapters (182 in other editions) contain the story of Saint George.
[
edit] Colours
Main article:
St George's CrossThe "Colours of Saint George", or
St George's Cross) are a white flag with a red cross, frequently borne by entities over which he is patron (e.g.
England,
Georgia,
Liguria,
Catalonia etc).
The origin of the St George's Cross came from the earlier plain white tunics worn by the early crusaders.
The same colour scheme was used by
Viktor Vasnetsov for the facade of the
Tretyakov Gallery, in which some of the most famous St. George icons are exhibited and which displays St. George as the coat of arms of Moscow over its entrance.
[
edit] Patronage and remembrance
In 1969, Saint George's feast day was reduced to an optional memorial in the
Roman Catholic calendar; the solemnity of his commemoration depends on purely local observance. He is, however, still honoured as a saint of major importance by the
Eastern Orthodox Church and in
Oriental Orthodoxy.
[
edit] England
A
2006 gold proof
half sovereign by the
Royal Mint depicting St George killing the dragon
The cult of St George probably first reached the
Kingdom of England when the crusaders returned from the Holy Land in the
12th century. King
Edward III of England (reigned
1327 –
1377) was known for promoting the codes of
knighthood and in
1348 founded the
Order of the Garter. During his reign, George came to be recognised as the
patron saint of
England; prior to this,
Saint Edmund had been considered the patron saint of England, although his veneration had perhaps waned since the time of the
Norman conquest. Edward dedicated the chapel at
Windsor Castle to the soldier saint who represented the knightly values of
chivalry which he so much admired, and the Garter ceremony takes place there every year. In the
16th Century,
William Shakespeare firmly placed St George within the national conscience in his play
Henry V in which the English troops are rallied with the cry “God for Harry, England and St George.” On June 2 1893,
Pope Leo XIII demoted St George as Patron Saint for the English, relegating him to the secondary rank of 'national protector' and replaced him with St Peter as the Patron Saint of England. The change was solemnly announced by Cardinal
Herbert Vaughan in the
Brompton Oratory. This papal pronouncement served to exclude the Catholic Church in England from a day which is part of English tradition. In 1963, in the Roman Catholic Church, St George was further demoted to a third class minor saint and removed him from the Universal Calendar, with the proviso that he could be honoured in local calendars. Pope
John Paul II, in 2000, restored St George to the Calendar, and he appears in
Missals as the English Patron Saint.
With the revival of Scottish and Welsh nationalism, there has been renewed interest within England in St George, whose memory had been in abeyance for many years. This is most evident in the St George's flags which now have replaced
Union Flags in stadiums where English sports teams compete. Nevertheless, St George’s Day still remains a relatively low-key affair with the City of
London not publicly celebrating the patron saint. However, the City of
Salisbury does hold an annual St George’s Day pageant, the origins of which are believed to go back to the thirteenth century.
[
edit] Palestine
Saint George is the patron saint of the Palestinian Christians, who lay claim to him as Saint George was from Palestine. In the areas around Bethlehem, where Saint George is said to have lived in his childhood, many Christians and many Muslims as well have a picture of St-George (known as Mar Girgius) in front of their homes, for his protection. See bottom sections
[
edit] Lebanon
Saint George is the patron saint of
Beirut.
[7] Many bays around Lebanon are named after Saint George, particularly the Saint George Bay in
Beirut.
The Bay of Saint George in Beirut is believed to be the place where the dragon lived and where it was slain.
[8] In Lebanon, Saint George is believed to have cleaned off his spear at a massive rocky cave running into the hillside and overlooking the beautiful
Jounieh Bay. Others argue it is at the Bay of
Tabarja. The waters of both caves are believed to have miraculous powers for healing ailing children.
[9]An ancient gilded icon of St. George at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Beirut has been a major attraction for believers, Copts, Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Maronites and some Muslims, for many centuries.
[10] Many churches are named in honor of the saint in Lebanon:
The
Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George,
Centre Ville,
Beirut,
LebanonThe
Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George,
Souk El Gharb,
LebanonThe
Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George,
Tripoli,
LebanonThe
Greek Catholic Church of Saint Georges of Bmakine,
Souk El Gharb,
LebanonThe
Maronite Catholic Cathedral of Saint George,
Centre Ville,
Beirut,
LebanonThe
Maronite Catholic Cathedral of Saint George,
Ehden,
LebanonHoly Monastery of Saint George, Deir El Harf,
LebanonSaint Georges of Ain Bourdai,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Beit Mery,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Edde,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Faitroun,
Keserwan District,
Mount Lebanon,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Kfeir,
Mount Hermon,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Khonchara,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Nahr Barada,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Qlaia,
South Lebanon,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Rmaich,
South Lebanon,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Sarba,
South Lebanon,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Sarine,
Bekaa Valley,
LebanonSaint Georges of
Zouk Mikael,
Keserwan District,
Mount Lebanon,
LebanonTriple Church of St. George,
Tabarja,
Lebanon[
edit] Georgia
Alaverdi Monastery of
Kakheti, in
GeorgiaSaint George is a patron saint of
Georgia. According to Georgian author Enriko Gabisashvili, Saint George is most venerated in the nation of
Georgia. An 18th century Georgian geographer and historian
Vakhushti Bagrationi wrote that there are 365 Orthodox churches in Georgia named after Saint George according to the number of days in a one year.
[11] There are indeed many churches in Georgia named after the Saint and
Alaverdi Monastery is one of the largest.
The Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates St. George's day twice a year, on May 6 (O.C. April 23) and November 23. The feast day in November was instituted by
St Nino of
Cappadocia, credited with bringing Christianity to the Georgians in the fourth century. She was from Cappadocia like Saint George and was his relative. This feast day is unique to Georgia and it is the day of St. George's martyrdom.
White George on Georgian COA
There are also many
folk traditions in Georgia that vary from
Georgian Orthodox Church rules, because they portray the Saint differently than the Church does and show the veneration of Saint George in common people of Georgia. Different regions of Georgia have different traditions and in most folk tales Saint George is adored as
Christ himself.
Kakheti province has the icon of White George. White George is also seen on the current Coat of Arms of Georgia. Pshavi region has the icons of Cuppola St. George and Lashari St. George.
Khevsureti region has Kakhmati, Gudani, Sanebi icons dedicated to the Saint. Pshavs and Khevsurs used to call Saint George the
God while they prayed in the
Middle Ages. Another notable icon is Lomisi Saint George in
Mtiuleti and
Khevi provinces of Georgia.
[11]Statue of Saint George in the
Freedom Square in
Tbilisi, Georgia
An example of folk tale about St. George: Once
Jesus Christ, prophet
Elijah and St. George were going through Georgia. When they became tired and hungry they stopped to dine. They saw a Georgian shepherd man and decided to ask him to feed them. First, Elijah went up to the shepherd and asked him for a sheep. After the shepherd asked his identity Elijah said that, he was the one who sent him rain to get him a good profit from farming. The shepherd became angry at him and told him that he was the one who also sent thunderstorms, which destroyed the farms of poor widows.
After Elijah, Jesus Christ himself went up to the shepherd and asked him for a sheep and told him that he was the god, the creator of everything. The shepherd became angry at Jesus and told him that he is the one who takes the souls away of young men and grants long lives to many dishonest people.
After Elijah and Christ's unsuccessful attempts, St. George went up to the shepherd, asked him for a sheep and told him that he is Saint George who the shepherd calls upon every time when he has troubles and St. George protect him from all the evil and saves him from troubles. After hearing St. George, the shepherd fell down on his knees and adored him and gave him everything. This folk tale shows the veneration of St. George in the Middle Ages provinces of Georgia and similar tales are told in the northern mountainous parts of the country.
[11]An interesting facts are Georgian sources, some of which are testified by
Persian ones, that Georgian Army during the battles were led by the knight on the white horse who came down from the heaven. Catholicos Besarion of Georgia also testified this fact.
Cross of St. George, Russian imperial decoration for military heroism.
[
edit] Bulgaria
Possibly the most celebrated name day in the country, St George's Day (Гергьовден, Gergyovden) is a public holiday that takes place on 6 May every year. A common ritual is to prepare a whole lamb and eat lamb, which is an ancient practice possibly related to Slavic pagan sacrificial traditions and the fact that he is the patron saint of the shepherds.
St. George's Day is also the Day of the Bulgarian Army (made official with a decree of Knyaz Alexander of Bulgaria on 9 January 1880) and parades are organised in the capital Sofia to present the best of the army's equipment and manpower.
[
edit] Iberian Peninsula
On the
Iberian peninsula, Saint George also came to be considered as patron to the Crown of
Aragon and
Catalonia,
Valencia and
Majorca; (
Spanish language: San Jorge,
Catalan language: Sant Jordi) and
Portugal (
Portuguese language: São Jorge). Already connected in accepting George as their patron saint, in
1386 England and Portugal agreed to an
Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. Today this treaty between the
United Kingdom and Portugal is still in force.
His feast date,
April 23, is the Day of Aragon (
Spain) and is also the a very important holiday in
Catalonia, where it is traditional to give a rose and a book to the loved one. This, together with the anniversary of the deaths, in
1616, of
Cervantes and
Shakespeare, has led
UNESCO to declare April 23
World Book and Copyright Day.
[
edit] Greece
In
Greece, St. George is the patron saint of the Hellenic Army. His image adorns all regimental battle flags (Colours), and military parades are held in his honour on 23 April every year in most army garrison towns and cities.
[
edit] Brazil
In the religious tradition of the
Afro-Brazilian Candomblé,
Ogoun (as this
Yoruba divinity is known in the
Portuguese language) is often identified with Saint George in many regions of the country, being widely celebrated by both religions' followers.
[
edit] United States
The United States Armor Association ("a non-profit organization with over 6,000 members dedicated to disseminating knowledge of the military art and sciences, with special attention to mobility in ground warfare"
[12]) "recognizes its finest tankers and cavalrymen" with a bronze medal of the Order of St. George.
[13]. St George is also known to be the patron saint of the
Boy Scouts of America.
[14][
edit] India
There are numerous churches dedicated to St. George in
India (especially in
Kerala) practising
Oriental Orthodoxy.
[
edit] Freemasons
The
Freemasons consider St. George one of their primary patron saints. The
United Grand Lodge of England holds its annual festival on a day as near as possible to St. George's Day, and St. George is depicted on the ceiling of the Grand Lodge Temple on Great Queen Street, London. A number of Masonic lodges around the world bear the name of St. George.
[
edit] Scouting
St George's Day is also celebrated with parades in those countries of which he is the patron saint. Also, St George is the patron saint of
Scouting. On St George's day (or the closest
Sunday), Scouts from around the world generally take part in a parade and some kind of church service in which they renew their
Scout Promise. The St. George Award is the highest rank attainable by a Baden-Powell Scout, a world-wide Scouting movement founded in England.
[
edit] Same sex matrimony
It has been suggested that St George become the patron saint of
civil partnerships and other forms of
same-sex matrimony because of the fact that he is referred to as the "bridegroom of Jesus" in the
Coptic tradition.
[15] Bridal imagery is a common theme throughout the New Testament and in the history of the Church, and St. George's position as a bridegroom is not unique.
[
edit] Other
In
Italy, Saint George is the patron saint of Reggio Calabria. He is also apparently the patron saint of skin disease sufferers and
syphilitic people.
[2] In
Colombia there is a school called
Gimnasio Campestre which honors St. George and where they recite his hymn every Friday.
[
edit] Muslim world
In Islamic cultures, the Prophet or Saint
al-Khidr or
Khizar; according to the
Quran a companion of the Prophet Muwsa
Moses, is associated with Mar Girgis (St. George), who is also venerated under that name by Christians among mainly Muslim people, especially
Palestinian people, and mainly around
Jerusalem, where according to tradition he lived and often prayed near the
Temple Mount, and is venerated as a protector in times of crisis. His main monument is the elongated mosque Qubbat al-Khidr ('The Dome of al-Khidr') which stands isolated from any close neighbors on the northwest corner of the
Dome of the Rock terrace in Jerusalem.
[
edit] Interfaith shrine
There is a tradition in the Holy Land of Christians and Muslim going to an
Eastern Orthodox shrine for St. George at Beith Jala, Jews also attending the site in the belief that the prophet
Elijah was buried there. This is testified to by Elizabeth Finn in 1866, where she wrote, “St. George killed the dragon in this country [Palestine]; and the place is shown close to Beyroot. Many churches and convents are named after him. The church at Lydda is dedicated to St. George: so is a convent near Bethlehem, and another small one just opposite the Jaffa gate; and others beside. The Arabs believe that St. George can restore mad people to their senses; and to say a person has been sent to St. George’s, is equivalent to saying he has been sent to a madhouse. It is singular that the Moslem Arabs share this veneration for St. George, and send their mad people to be cured by him, as well as the Christians. But they commonly call him El Khudder —The Green—according to their favorite manner of using epithets instead of names. Why he should be called green, however, I cannot tell—unless it is from the colour of his horse. Gray horses are called green in Arabic.”
[16] A possible explanation for this colour reference is Al Khidr, the erstwhile tutor of Moses, gained his name from having sat in a barren desert, turning it into a lush green paradise. See above for the association of Al Khidder and St George.
William Dalrymple reviewing the literature in 1999 tells us that J.E. Hanauer in his 1907 book Foklore of the Holy Land: Muslim, Christian and Jewish "mentioned a shrine in the village of Beit Jala, beside Bethlehem, which at the time was frequented by all three of Palestine’s religious communities. Christians regarded it as the birthplace of St. George, Jews as the burial place of the Prophet Elias, Muslims as the home of the legendary saint of fertility known simply as
Khidr, Arabic for green. According to Hanauer, in his day the monastery was “a sort of madhouse. Deranged persons of all the three faiths are taken thither and chained in the court of the chapel, where they are kept for forty days on bread and water, the
Eastern Orthodox priest at the head of the establishment now and then reading the Gospel over them, or administering a whipping as the case demands.’
[17] In the 1920’s according to Taufiq Canaan’s Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine, nothing seemed to have changed, and all three communities were still visiting the shrine and praying together."
[18]Dalrymple himself visited the place in 1995 "I asked around in the Christian Quarter in Jerusalem, and discovered that the pace was very much alive. With all the greatest shrines in the Christian world to choose from, it seemed that when the local Arab Christians had a problem – an illness, or something more complicated: a husband detained in an Israeli prison camp, for example – they preferred to seek the intercession of St George in his grubby little shrine at Beit Jala rather than praying at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem."
[18] He asked the priest at the shrine "Do you get many Muslims coming here?" The priest replied, "We get hundreds! Almost as many as the Christian pilgrims. Often, when I come in here, I find Muslims all over the floor, in the aisles, up and down."
[18][19][20]The Encyclopædia Britannica quotes G.A. Smith in his Hist. Geog. of Holy Land p. 164 saying “The Mahommedans who usually identify St. George with the prophet Elijah, at Lydda confound his legend with one about Christ himself. Their name for Antichrist is Dajjal, and they have a tradition that Jesus will slay Antichrist by the gate of Lydda. The notion sprang from an ancient
bas-relief of George and the Dragon on the Lydda church. But Dajjal may be derived, by a very common confusion between n and l, from Dagon, whose name two neighboring villages bear to this day, while one of the gates of Lydda used to be called the Gate of Dagon.”
[21][
edit] Etymology
The name George comes from Latin Georgius, from Greek Georgios "husbandman, farmer," from geo "earth" + ergon "work".
[
edit] Notes
^ The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge omitted Saint George.
^ Butler.
^ Robertson, The Medieval Saints' Lives (pp 51-52) suggested that the dragon motif was transferred to the George legend from that of his fellow
soldier saint,
Saint Theodore Tiro. The Roman Catholic writer
Alban Butler (Lives of the Saints) was at pains to credit the motif as a late addition: "It should be noted, however, that the story of the dragon, though given so much prominence, was a later accretion, of which we have no sure traces before the twelfth century. This puts out of court the attempts made by many folklorists to present St. George as no more than a
christianized survival of pagan mythology."
^ Loomis 1948:65 and notes 111-17, giving references to other saints' encounters with dragons. "To Loomis's list might be added the stories of Martha . . . and Silvester, which is vigorously summarized (from a fifth-century version of the Actus Silvestri) by the early English writer,
Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury (639-709), in his De Virginitate (see Aldhelm: The Prose Works, pp. 82-83). On dragons and saints, see now Rauer, Beowulf and the Dragon." (Whatley 2004).
Saint Mercurialis, the first bishop of the city of
Forlì, in
Romagna, is often portrayed in the act of killing a dragon.
^ Incidentally, the name Ascalon was used by
Winston Churchill for his personal aircraft during
World War II, according to records at
Bletchley Park.
^ The red
pigment may appear black if it has bitumenized.
^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1937546.stm^ http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197106/st.george.the.ubiquitous.htm^ http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197106/st.george.the.ubiquitous.htm^ http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197106/st.george.the.ubiquitous.htm^
a b c Gabidzashvili, Enriko. 1991. Saint George: In Ancient Georgian Literature. Armazi - 89: Tbilisi, Georgia.
^ The U.S. Armor Association homepage. Retrieved on Jan. 17, 2007
^ U.S. Armor Association Awards Program. Retrieved on Jan. 17, 2007
^ St. George, Patron Saint of Scouting. Retrieved on
2007-
03-05.
^ http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biog1/geor1.html The quotes on this page are from The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappodocia: The Coptic Texts,
E. A. Wallis Budge, (London: D. Nutt, 1888), p282 and 320-321
^ Elizabeth Anne Finn (1866). Home in the Holyland. James Nisbet and Co., London, 46-47.
^ Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish, by J. E. Hanauer 1907. Retrieved on Jan. 18, 2007
^
a b c William Dalrymple. From the Holy Mountain: a journey among the Christians of the Middle East. Owl Books (March 15, 1999).
^ Who is Saint George?. St. George's Basilica. Retrieved on Jan. 17, 2007
^ H. S. Haddad.
"Georgic" Cults and Saints of the Levant. Retrieved on Jan. 18, 2007
^ (1910) Encyclopædia Britannica - eleventh edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Co., New York, NY. Retrieved on Jan. 18, 2007
[
edit] See also
KhidrGeorgslied, 9th-century
Old High German poem about the life of Saint George
Knights of St. GeorgeBristol, England, which has a district christened Saint George and also a park bearing that name
St. George's DayDiada de Sant JordiPaladinDragon Hill, UffingtonSt George's Church, churches dedicated to St. George
The Magic Sword, 1961 film loosely based on the legend of St. George and the Dragon
[
edit] References
Brooks, E.W., 1925. Acts of Saint George in series Analecta Gorgiana 8 (Gorgias Press).
Burgoyne, Michael H. 1976. A Chronological Index to the Muslim Monuments of Jerusalem. In The Architecture of Islamic Jerusalem. Jerusalem: The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
Alban Butler, Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, pp. 148-150. "George, Martyr, Protector of the Kingdom of England" (
on-line text)
Gabidzashvili, Enriko. 1991. Saint George: In Ancent Georgian Literature. Armazi - 89: Tbilisi, Georgia.
Loomis, C. Grant, 1948. White Magic, An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend (Cambridge: Medieval Society of America)
Natsheh, Yusuf. 2000. "Architectural survey", in Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City 1517-1917. Edited by Sylvia Auld and Robert Hillenbrand (London: Altajir World of Islam Trust) pp 893-899.
Whatley, E. Gordon, editor, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch, 2004. St. George and the Dragon in the South English Legendary (East Midland Revision, c. 1400) Originally published in Saints' Lives in Middle English Collections
(Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications) (
On-line Introduction)
[
edit] External links
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