GEORGE, SAINT (d. c. 300), the patron saint of England, Aragon and Portugal. The only historical element in the intri cate tradition that has grown up around his . name seems to be his martyrdom at Lydda in Palestine. The dubious elements in clude his rapid advance to high military rank, his organization of the Christian community at Urmi (Urumiah), his visit to Britain on an imperial expedition and his protest against the persecutions by Diocletian. Calvin impugned the saint's existence, but two Syrian church inscriptions testify to the early date of his venera tion and early pilgrims mention Lydda as the centre of an ancient cultus. Again in the canon of Pope Gelasius (494) George is mentioned in a list of those "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." Modern criticism hesitates to identify St. George with the nameless martyr described in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. viii. 5, or to accept Gibbon's theory that he was a legendary double of George of Cappadocia, an opponent of Athanasius.
The connection of St. George with a dragon, familiar since the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, can be traced to the close of the 6th century. At Arsuf or Joppa—neither of them far from Lydda—Perseus had slain the sea-monster that threat ened the virgin Andromeda, and George, like many another Chris tian saint, entered into the inheritance of veneration previously enjoyed by a pagan hero. His popularity in England has never reached the height attained by St. Andrew in Scotland, St. David in Wales or St. Patrick in Ireland. The council of Oxford in 1222 ordered that his feast should be kept as a national festival ; but it was not until the time of Edward III. that he was made patron of the kingdom. His feast is celebrated on April 23.
See P. Heylin, The History of . . . S. George of Cappadocia (1631) ; Fr. Grvrres, "Der Ritter St. Georg in der Geschichte, Legende and Kunst" (Zeitschrift fiir wiss. Theologie, xxx., 1887) ; E. A. W. Budge, The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappadocia: the Coptic texts edited with an English translation (1888) ; Delehaye, Les saintes militaires (1909) ; E. O. Gordon, Saint George (1907) ; M. H. Bulley, St. George for Merrie England (1908) .