By DEB PIROCH
“Ring, then, ye bells, upon St. George’s Day, / From every tower in glad accordance ring; /And let all instruments, full, strong, or sweet, / With touch of modulated string, / And soft or swelling breath, and sonorous beat, / The happy name repeat, / While heart and voice their joyous tribute bring, /And speak the People’s love for George their King” — Excerpt, Ode for St. George’s Day by Robert Southey (1774-1843).
We have a Church filled to overflow with a wealth of saints. The challenge in delving back through the centuries are that some details are missing and blur with time. But while we may not be able to directly cite details or words as we can with St. Thomas More or Pope St. John Paul II, history and archeology reveal much, should one choose to see the evidence laid out before us. Such a case is St. George (feast: April 23).
In our family my father was born this day and commented occasionally he should have been named after the great saint. However, every eldest boy in our family is named Joseph! And my father was an only child. This set me on a journey this week to discover more about the life of St. George. Surely, he killed no dragons, yet that is how we see him personified repeatedly in the great artworks since the Middle Ages.
Let us begin with what we do know. He lived during the third century after Christ, born to a pagan senator and a Christian mother. He became a soldier, but unfortunately this was during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. During his reign, Christian martyrs suffered the bloodiest age of martyrdom ever experienced.
St. George was not about to renounce his Christian faith, though some stories say Diocletian may have tried to change his mind. In any case, he refused, and was likely tortured — one account states he was dragged behind horses — and in the end, all agree he was beheaded. An ancient testimony in the Vatican archives by a “Poscrates” gives witness to the death, which reportedly occurred on April 23. This is also, incidentally, the birthday of another great, William Shakespeare.
What else can we glean from history? The future St. George died in what was then Palestine. We also know that he was a very popular and famed saint, because for centuries afterward we know of definitive evidence honoring the memory of St. George.
In the year 595 Pope Gelasius attested to certain apocryphal acts of St. George.
The earliest church known named for him dates to the year 518 . . . in Syria.
Pope Leo II built or built onto a Roman church named for St. George in 683. Pope Zacharias moved relics into the church. The name of the Roman church is San Giorgio in Valabra, which had been begun by St. Gregory the Great.
In the seventh century, St. George was already splendidly entombed in a basilica at Lydda, then located approximately 20 miles from Jerusalem. This was under the reign of Constantine.
In the seventh century in far-away England, the Venerable Bede makes mention of St. George’s Day, which was already established in England.
So popular was St. George that according to information in a Wikipedia citation, over 40 churches in Moscow alone once bore his name. Other churches around the world including ruins in Egypt and Syria, up to today’s St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, bear marks of his name. . . . Oh and yes, St. George’s Chapel is where Prince Harry recently married Meghan Markle (and where Henry VIII happens to be buried!). By the fourteenth century St. George was the patron saint of all England and April 23 a celebrated holiday. Until the eighteenth century, the date was a holy day of obligation! Sadly, today his memory is not much observed in the secular United Kingdom.
As with many ancient saints, St. George is surrounded by a plethora of stories that are myths, ranging from countless attempts at martyrdom that failed, to his slaying of a dragon. However, not until the Middle Ages, around the twelfth century perhaps, was his biography even associated with that of a dragon!
So whence the dragon? Indeed, that tale was popularized or at least reinforced by The Golden Legend, a 1260 publication, which adopted the literary form of the romance in vogue at that time. St. George rescued a damsel from a dragon and saved the day.
“Thus as they spake together the dragon appeared and came running to them, and S. George was upon his horse, and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him. . . . Then S. George said to them: Ne doubt ye no thing, without more, believe ye in God, Jesu Christ, and do ye to be baptized and I shall slay the dragon. Then the king was baptized and all his people. . . . . Then were there well fifteen thousand men baptized, without women and children, and the king did do make a church there of our Lady and of S. George, in the which yet sourdeth a fountain of living water, which healeth sick people that drink thereof. — The Golden Legend.
Would that today we lionized saints instead of comic-book heroes like Superman! So much during earlier eras revolved around the Catholic faith in daily life. Great art was inspired by religion, so too popular holidays, even street names and popular foods (hot cross buns marked the end of Lent, and bore a cross of icing reminding one of the crucifixion). By existing as the subtext of the culture, faith was deep in the people.
The story above may make mention of a dragon, but who could fail to associate the dragon — with its serpentine shape, its evil intent, its wings — with that of Satan himself? In decapitating the dragon, St. George clearly was defeating Satan in the telling of the story.
Ally In Battle
A red cross on a white background: These were the colors of the so-called Cross of St. George. It has been stated that the saint’s name was invoked at the French defeat by the English at Poitiers (1356). Especially devoted to the saint, King Henry V reportedly ordered that his soldiers wear “the cross of St. George” into the Battle of Agincourt (1415), which the English won against the French at great odds. St. George was also a special favorite during the Crusades, worn on the tunics of the Templars. And mysterious accounts reported that St. George appeared at the Battle of Antioch (1098) to help route the Turks before later being adopted by St. Richard the Lionheart. He, too, defeated the Turks despite their tremendous numbers at the Battle of Arsuf (1191), as his soldiers rode into battle crying, “St. George! St. George!”
In times of trial and temptation, let us adopt this famed battle cry as our own.
O God, who didst grant St. George strength and constancy in the various torments he sustained for our holy faith, we beseech thee to preserve, through his intercession, our faith from wavering and doubt, so we may serve thee faithfully with a sincere heart till death. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
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