Feast Day, April 23.
Born circa 275 to a Roman senior ranking soldier, and a Palestinian mother. Died in 303 as a result of Diocletian’s order to kill Christian soldiers, even those of higher rank, which would have included George who had already attained the rank of tribunus. Diocletian would not have known, except that George made clear his testimony and witness to Jesus Christ. He was beheaded.
Not to be confused with Spenser’s….”the Redcrosse Knight of Holiness”
although the 16th century allegory is quite similar
A Collect provided by James Kiefer:
Almighty God, who gave to your servant George boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
From the back of a prayer card:
St. George, heroic Catholic Soldier and defender of Your faith, you dared to criticize a tyrannical Emperor, and were subjected to horrible torture. You could have occupied a high military position, but you preferred to die for your Lord.
Good St. George, obtain for us the great grace of heroic Christian courage that should mark all soldiers of Christ.
From a Novena:
PRAYER IN HONOR OF SAINT GEORGE
O GOD, who didst grant to Saint George strength and constancy in the various torments which he sustained for our holy faith; we beseech Thee to preserve, through his intercession, our faith from wavering and doubt, so that we may serve Thee with a sincere heart faithfully unto death. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
INVOCATION OF SAINT GEORGE
Faithful servant of God and invincible martyr, Saint George; favored by God with the gift of faith, and inflamed with an ardent love of Christ, thou didst fight valiantly against the dragon of pride, falsehood, and deceit. Neither pain nor torture, sword nor death could part thee from the love of Christ. I fervently implore thee for the sake of this love to help me by thy intercession to overcome the temptations that surround me, and to bear bravely the trials that oppress me, so that I may patiently carry the cross which is placed upon me; and let neither distress nor difficulties separate me from the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Valiant champion of the Faith, assist me in the combat against evil, that I may win the crown promised to them that persevere unto the end.
Troparian to St. George: O Great Among the Saints and Glorious Martyr George, since you are a deliverer of captives and a defender of the poor, a doctor for the sick and a noble attendant to kings: intercede with Christ God, that He may save our souls.
George, a Captain in the Roman Army, tore up in defiance an edict of Emperor Diocletian ordering the persecution of Christians. He battled the devil, symbolized by the dragon, and saved the Holy Church. He rides a white horse that indicates God’s grace carrying him to the heroism of martyrdom and Jesus Christ’s hand appears from Heaven to bless him. Constantine the Great built a great church over his tomb in Lyda of Palestine. The name George means ‘Tiller of the Earth.’ This icon is based on the Novgorod icon of St. George.
UPDATE: More, from the Basilica of St George in Malta, probably the most complete and thorough reviews of the information on Georgius that is currently available. Here are excerpts:
http://www.stgeorge.org.mt/page.asp?id=12“Pretty little is known about St. George although his devotees are at no loss for words to depict him as a young Christian nobleman who made the Christians proud at a time when the dominant pagans were time and again making them eat dust. Written accounts of his heroic defiance of the emperor and of his multiple sufferings at the hands of expert pagan torturers were already circulating in the 5th century and especially during the 6th.
The famous decree entitled De libris recipiendis, attributed to Gelasius, the bishop of Rome who died in 496 attests to the interesting fact that certain apocryphal writings about St. George which were circulating at the time were considered by the Roman Church to be suspect. By his decree, however, the pope was by no means issuing a refutation of the existence of St. George since the document, commonly known as the Decretum Gelasianum, stated that St. George was one of the saints “whose names are justly revered among men but whose actions are only known to God”.Fr Hippolyte Delehaye (1859-1941) who would acquit himself admirably as the greatest modern scholar of the lives of the saints (hagiography), did much to correct it. Thios erudite Jesuit priest dedicated most of his life to the exploration of the origins of Christian hagiography. He wanted to provide solid historical foundation for those saints whom the church venerates. With regard to St George, throughout his work, this eminent writer points out that there can be no rational doubt concerning his existence.
For incontrovertible evidence, Delahaye mentions and emphasizes the veneration in which St George’s tomb at Diospolis (Lydda) was held from the time of his glorious death. The sanctuary constructed over St George’s sepulcher was visited by; devotees and pilgrims from all over Christian Europe since the early 5th century the time of his martyrdom and death. The narratives of such early pilgrims as Theodosius (De sity terrae sanctae, 530 AD), both of whom prayed at the site of St George’s remains at Lydda in the 6th century, testify not only to their contemporaries but speak also about those who preceded them at this place hallowed by the martyr’s remains. It was there that the devotion of the Christians to St George was focused. It was from there that it radiated far away to distant cities and lands. There is hardly any place in the Christian world where St George is not venerated as patron saint or protector.
Nevertheless little is known with certainty about this young man whose heroic witness to Christ is still a source of inspiration and love almost seventeen centuries after his death. Born, according to Christian tradition, of Christian parents most probably around the year 284 AD, young George must have been one of the many Christian soldiers and officers who, in those years of tolerance, were allowed to serve with honor in the Roman army.
Following the anti-Christian edict of February 303, George refused to renounce his Christian faith and subsequently suffered martyrdom and death in the same year. He soon became one of the earliest and most renowned Christian martyrs of Diocletian’s great persecution of 303.
Immediately after Constantine’s edict of tolerance (AD 314) churches were dedicated in his honor not only at the site of his tomb in Palestine but also in Syria and nearby regions. The remains of the Constantinian church at Lydda (then Diospolis and today Lod, in Israel) can still be seen and examined notwithstanding the ravages of time and inter-religious conflicts throughout the passage of seventeen hundred years.
More outstanding is the sixth century church of ‘Mar Georgis’ (the Lord George) which still stands and serves the local Christians at “Ezraa” in Syria. Other early churches are known to have been dedicated to St George, as evidenced by extant or recorded inscriptions. One of these inscriptions speaks of a church which around the middle of the 4th century was dedicated to “St George and his companions” – that is within living memory of the saint’s death.”
