St. George, Martyr

St. George is an early Christian Martyr who lived during the Third Century and is thought to have died in Lydda, Palestine (now the city of Lod in Israel).  His feastday is celebrated today, April 23.   During the Middle Ages he became an ideal of martial valour and selflessness. He is the patron saint of England and of the nation of Georgia, and is venerated as one of the 14 Holy Helpers.

Nothing of George’s life or deeds can be established, but tradition holds that he was a Roman soldier and was tortured and decapitated under Diocletian’s persecution of Christians in 303. His remains were taken to Lydda, the homeland of his mother, and were later transferred to the church that was built in his name there. Various relics reportedly are housed in both Western and Eastern churches worldwide. St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, for example, is said to have once held two fingers, part of the heart, and part of the skull of the saint.

Legends about him as a warrior-saint, dating from the 6th century, became popular and increasingly extravagant. Jacob de Voragine’s Legenda aurea (1265–66) repeats the story of his rescuing a Libyan king’s daughter from a dragon and then slaying the monster in return for a promise by the king’s subjects to be baptized.  It is a theme much represented in art, the saint frequently being depicted as a youth wearing knight’s armour with a scarlet cross on a white background.  This symbol is now the national flag of England and forms part of the Union Jack, along with the white diagonal cross of St. Andrew (for Scotland) and the red diagonal cross of St. Patrick (for Ireland).

George was known in England by at least the 8th century. Returning Crusaders likely popularized his cult (he was said to have been seen helping the Franks at the Battle of Antioch in 1098), but he was probably not recognized as England’s patron saint until after King Edward III (reigned 1327–77) made him the patron of the newly founded Most Noble Order of the Garter. He was also adopted as protector of several other medieval powers, including Portugal, Genoa, and Venice. With the passing of the chivalric age and finally the Protestant Reformation, the cult of St. George dwindled. His feast is given a lesser status in the calendar of the Church of England, although it is still observed with parades and various other religious and secular rituals.  The feast of St. George was a holy day of obligation for English Roman Catholics until the late 18th century.

We should take the opportunity today to pray for the return of England to the true faith.  During the late Nineteenth Century and well into the Twentieth, there had been an enormous influx of converts, especially from the established Church of England.  This all came to an abrupt halt at the Second Vatican Council, and today it is ironic that the Anglican Communion Service is more Catholic in its ceremonies and language than the Novus Ordo of Paul VI.  Nevertheless, the modernist reforms of Vatican II have been widely followed and even surpassed by the Church of England, who now rejoice in their “women priests and bishops”, and more recently even transgender clergy.  Devout Anglicans seek desperately for a more Catholic alternative, but alas, the Roman Catholics these days are reluctant to provide them with a haven of truth.  Let us beg St. George for his help to restore England, once known as the Dowry of Mary, to the one true fold of the Good Shepherd.