St George

[Michelle]

The icon where he's on the horse stabbing the serpent..(is it a serpent?)

it's been my fav since i was little but i don't know the story behind it.

[Christopher Webb]

From what i understand St George was born in Cappadocia and according to legend rescued a village from a dragon which demanded human sacrifices( in later medieval legend the actual victim was to have been a princess ), anyway St George slew the dragon and impressed by this feat the villagers were all baptised.

I also understand that St George sitting upon a white horse slaying the dragon/serpent is representative of a victorious Christ defeating the evil one. I believe the image is drawn from the book of Revelation.

More generally St George is ( if my memory serves me well ) the patron saint of soldiers, of England and as I understand it in Greece of farmers. Interestingly he is extremely popular in the middle east, primarily with Christians but also with Muslims who identify St George with a character from the Koran ( who's name eludes me ). This is why many churches located primarily im Muslim areas have St George as patron.

[Klod]

It is a dragon. I am sure you can find his life on-line!

[Timothy Richardson]

St. George is commemorated along with two other "Soldier" Saints: St. Demetrios and St. Theodore the Recruit. They were all martyrs under the Roman persecutions.

[Antonios]

The 'dragon' is from the life of St. Demetrios, which has the story of how he killed such a creature which was terrorizing a community.

My understanding from a source I cannot recall is that the 'dragon' was likley a large crocodile or alligator, which was what they were commonly called back then, and not a fire-breathing monster with wings like from fairy tales of old. Has anyone else heard of this?

[Olga]

From my understanding, the earliest icons of St George were simply of him in half- or full-stature, in military dress, typical of any warrior-saint, such as Demetrius of Thessalonica, Theodore of Tyre or Theodore the Commander. The dragon is a later addition, most likely through early mediaeval influences from western Europe. It is from about the 11th century where St George began to be associated with England, and the image of him astride his horse, subduing the dragon was most appealing to the notions of chivalry among English knights.

The majority of iconographers would regard the dragon as a symbol of evil, not as a figure which was part of an actual event in St George's life. The further additions to the composition, such as the rescued princess, are definitely of later, mediaeval origin.

[Sandra June Hofstead]

As an iconographer I was taught that St. George astride a white horse subduing the dragon was not a narrative (historical)but that it portrays in symbol the ascetic struggler, represented by the warrior St. George, in control of his/her purified mind, represented by riding the white horse, subdues the passions. Thus the dragon represents passion and is shown, not dead but beneath the horse and rider in a submissive posture. The horses legs are arranged in such a way that it is clearly not running to or from anywhere, active and energetic, aware but still. The background of the icon is (or should be)revealing the spiritual nature of the event portrayed rather than any spacio-temporal location.

[Olga]

Thank you, Sandra, you expressed exactly what I wanted to say, only better. One question for you: I have come across an early 15th C Russian icon of St George, attributed to Andrei Rublyev or one of his school, where the saint is astride a black horse, not a white one! If this was an icon produced by someone in an isolated region, or less schooled, this would be understandable. But coming from a source such as this, I wonder if you (or others on this forum) could shed some light on this quirk. It has puzzled me for years. It is definitely St George depicted, and not some other warrior-saint, as he is subduing a dragon. From memory, the inscription of the saint's name is also reasonably clear.

[Rene O.]

I just watched a presentation by several Orthodox priests, bishops and scholars of the Orthodox faith at

http://www.orthodox.tv/thesaints.php#stgeorge . The historical account they presented spoke of St. George, being a military commander in the Roman Army in late 200 A.D. till 310 a.d. timeframe. When a dragon had killed many in a village, many tried to kill it, but all failed and died trying. It seemed this specific dragon's breath had some kind of deadly capability (guess like a biological warfare agent, don't know), but no one could kill it for sure. The townspeople finally started offering one chosen person at a time to the dragon. When the village ruler's daughter was being offered, St. George heard about it and faced this dragon, pierced it, bound it and brought it into town. They asked him how he could do what no one else had been able to do, and he said it was because of the glory of Jesus Christ. He offered to slay the dragon completely if they wanted to follow our God and they seeing the miracle of Christ through St. George, followed Christ from that day forth and St. George slew the dragon.

Later Emperor Diocletian was furious that Christians would not bow to him, due to their respect and honor of the King Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that he had a proclamation put out to derank all Romans with titles who were Christians, and kill the regular Romans who were Christians. St. George, chose to obey God rather than men, since the order posted required the killing of innocents and Christians to top that off. When he publicly tore the order, the emperor questioned him and he fully testified faithfullly of the love of Christ and his allegiance to our God.

{Whether the dragon lines up with some of our modern dinasour bones or if it was a giant lizard like creature is an interesting exploration to me, but I did not find the video get deeper on that, except, some sites tried to make the whole story only a spiritual tale and do away with the history behind the obvious spiritual secondary meaning of slaying the dragon, the devil. It is wonderful to know that God uses soldiers like St. George to defeat murderous creatures and rescue us from their vile actions at times in this world and always in the world to come, of course.}

They started to torture him with spokes of knives, beat him up and cut him up so many different ways, but his God given testimony in the midst of the tortures was so strong that even the wife of the emperor decided to follow Christ from that point on. Obviously the emperor was furious. They did try to seduce him by sending a very beautiful woman to the prison, and 23 years of age, one would think that a carnally minded man would have succumbed to the devil's viles, but St. George saw the woman with the Holy Spirit's eyes and by the morning, she was at his feet, asking to have St. George baptize her a Christian :-)!

After 7 years of torture, St. George had a prophecy that he was going to finally meet our Lord through "sleep" of physical death the next day. He had the emperor bring many of the royal officials with the words that he was going to declare the truth about the Roman gods. Thinking they finally had gotten to him, they brought him forth publicly before the temple of the idols and St. George spoke a word of faithfulness to Christ and immediately the idols and the temples started to crumble unto their destruction.

The emperor did also test God by asking St. George to raise someone the Emperor knew from the dead. St. George agreed, and when they brought him a dead body, he called out to Christ and the LORD granted a miracle by bringing the man to life, in front of their eyes. But, just like pharoah of old and the nonbelieving Jews, instead of repenting, he had St. George beheaded instead. St. George's relics are with us in Palestine now and even many muslims bow down before his testimony as honor to St. George.


The icon where he's on the horse stabbing the serpent..(is it a serpent?)

it's been my fav since i was little but i don't know the story behind it.

[Effie Ganatsios]

According to my Greek Orthodox diary St. George's history is the same as that found here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George

A few details that are not included in above. His titles " freer of slaves" and "defender of the poor" are due to the fact that just before he was tortured St. George, being the heir to his family's great fortune, freed his slaves and distributed his wealth to the poor. His title "Healer of illnesses" is because, due to God's Grace, many healing miracles have been attributed to him, concerning both physical and mental illnesses. Finally, because he was a courageous army officer who was awarded many medals, he is the patron saint of the Hellenic Army. He is also the patron saint of other countries, including England.

The icons depicting him killing a dragon are symbolic.

Effie