Tuesday, May 26

Early Church · d. c. 303

Greatmartyr George the Trophy-bearer

Soldier, greatmartyr and victory-bearer

According to the earliest traditions George was a soldier of Cappadocian family serving with distinction in the Roman army, who declared himself a Christian before Diocletian at the outbreak of the Great Persecution around 303, was tortured, and was beheaded — the martyrdom is usually located at Nicomedia, his burial at Lydda in Palestine, where his shrine drew pilgrims from the fourth century onward. That early and intense veneration is historically solid; the details are not, for the surviving acts embroider his sufferings with fantastic tortures, and the famous dragon story is a much later medieval legend symbolizing his victory over evil. The Church names him Trophy-bearer and Victory-bearer, and few saints have been loved across so many borders: patron of England and Georgia, of Ethiopia and Catalonia, of soldiers, farmers, and captives alike.

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