Today, 23rd April, is St George’s Day. We are not aware of any particular celebrations taking place in our villages, though next year the Odd Fellows and the Legion may be marking the occasion. However, PARWICH.ORG could not let the day pass without a post.
When checking with the Team if I could have this post, the Vicar responded:
I always find it rather ironic, given the affection in which the English hold St George, that he is thought to have been from what is now Turkey. Of course St. Andrew of Scotland was from Palestine . so perhaps we should all adopt a real British saint, like David! But maybe, on the other hand, St. George’s origins should help us in our attempts to build better Christian-Muslim relations …”
To quote Butler’s “Lives of the Saints”:
We are told that St. George was a Christian knight and that he was born in Cappadocia. It chanced, however, that he was riding one day in the province of Lybia, and there he came upon a city called Sylene, near which was a marshy swamp. In this lived a dragon. The people had mustered together to attack and kill it, but its breath was so terrible that all had fled.
To prevent its coming nearer they supplied it every day two sheep, but when sheep grew scarce, a human victim had to be substituted. This victim was selected by lot, and the lot just then had fallen on the king’s own daughter. No one was willing to take her place, and the maiden had gone forth dressed as a bride to meet her doom.
Then St George, coming upon the scene, attacked the dragon, and transfixed it with his lance. Further he borrowed the maiden’s girdle, fastened it round the dragon’s neck, and with this aid she led the monster captive into the city. The people in mortal terror were about to take flight, but St. George told them to have no fear. If only they would believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized, he would slay the dragon. The king and all his subjects gladly assented. The dragon was killed and four ox-carts were needed to carry the carcass to a safe distance.
St. George, born in Turkey of a Palestinian mother, became a soldier in the Roman army and was subsequently martyred, by being beheaded, for his Christian beliefs in AD 303. He was canonized some time after 900AD. Unfortunately the stories of his battle with the dragon do not appear until eight hundred years or so after his death. Indeed the story sounds like one of the many tales of chivalry and courtly love told by the troubadours across Europe in the twelfth century, particularly at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
St George was known in England before the Norman Conquest, but his reputation only came to prominence in the twelfth century probably due to the influence of King Richard I, Ceour de Lion. It may be that a young Richard heard stories at his mother, Queen Eleanor’s court in France, but he would also have come into contact with the cult of St George on the Crusades in the Holy Land. However it was not until the national synod of Oxford in 1222 that his feast day was included amongst the lesser holidays. Under King Edward III, in 1348 the Order of the Garter was founded with St. George as its patron saint. About this time he became recognised as patron saint of England, ousting the native St Edmund, martyr and king of East Anglia.
Unsurprising with his Turkish Arab and Middle East origins, St. George is particularly popular in the Orthodox Churches, and as patron saint we share him with Aragon, Canada, Catalonia, China, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, and Serbia.
It is interesting that St George is so strongly associated with the Crusades, which still are a factor in the negative aspects of Christian/Moslem relations today, when St George is also a figure revered by both Christianity and Islam. Under a different name he is, as far as I am aware, the only Christian figure after Jesus Christ to have a role in Islam. St George and his Islamic equivalent both have associations with the earlier pagan deities such as Hizir (‘Green George’) of Asia Minor and Rahmanan, a South Arabian moon god. It would be interesting to have more information on the overlaps between Christianity and Islam and their common origins in the Middle East.
Contrary to the attempt by some extremists in England to annex him for anti-Islamic purposes, some contemporary Christians see his Palestinian and Arab origins as a means to build bridges between Christians and Moslems both in the Middle East and closer to home.
More recently within the Roman Catholic Church St. George has had a decline in popularity. Previously his feast was a holiday of obligation for British Catholics, but in 1969 he was demoted to the third order of saints, whose feast days are optional. The Anglican Church has always had a less unambiguous relationship with saints. Our strongest links with St. George were perhaps before the Reformation, and even in Shakespeare he occurs in relation to military action and a looking back to a glorious past, “St George and Merry England“. More recently St George’s day passed largely unnoticed and it is only over the last few years interest in him has grown as we are again exploring the idea of ‘Englishness’. One way this has manifested itself is the widespread use of the cross of St. George, as opposed to the Union Flag.
Prompted by the Vicar one can not help but wonder if there might be a more appropriate British candidate for England’s patron saint. The Vicar suggested St David, some raise St Alban, our first recorded martyr, but there are many others such as St Edmund and St Oswald. Personally I would vote for St Cuthbert or St Aidan, but that is my regional bias. I would have voted for the Venerable Bede, but his canonization did not take place until after the split with Rome, so as a saint he never made it into the Anglican calendar.
However it may be that our villages have links to St. George or that individuals within our communities see him as significant for particular reasons. Do let us know your thoughts on St George and how the day might be marked. If nothing else we could take the lead from the Irish on St Patrick’s day and go to the Legion or the Sycamore to share a drink with our fellow English men and women.
Some more information
- http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jack_straw/2007/04/_he_was_born_in.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/saints/george_1.shtml
Pagan Origins?
PARWICH.ORG 
Looking at the stats, this is one of our least read posts so far, (ignoring the possible implications for my prose style) does this mean that most people are just not interested in either the idea of a patron saint or in St. George?
I think it’s just that people visit this site to read about Parwich and its immediate neighbourhood, and this post doesn’t really fit into our remit. It’s what people call “off-topic”…
This is probably true, though we don’t fully know what people will be interested in till we try different things, and we should not put too many restrictions in advance. However I still suspect it also indicates that St. George is not a burning issue, and we will see what happens with next year’s proposed local St. George’s day celebrations.
it is difficult to celebrate it as people have to go to work so if it is in the week it is a bit isolated, as in todays age people will probably be to busy. Now if a public holiday were to be given I am sure there would be a lot more interest.
Even st patricks day was moved to a saturday this year but that I think had somthing to do with not being allowed to celebrate a st’s day in a holy week and not because it was on a monday and would of meant less Guiness sold !!!