April 23 is the feast day of St. George, a saint whose popularity — as well as just about everything we know about him — is legendary. The saint hailed from the Christian east — possibly from Cappadocia in present-day Turkey — but seems to have been martyred in the late third century in what is today Israel. George was a soldier who converted to Christianity. He was put to death after refusing to sacrifice to Rome’s pagan gods and undergoing excruciating tortures.
This defiant courage when standing up to a more powerful foe is perhaps what has made the figure of St. George resonate with so many throughout history. Perhaps it also contributed to the legendary stories of St. George slaying a dragon who was oppressing a Christian population. The saint is particularly popular among Arab Christians, who have long lived under the yoke of Muslim rule, and across the eastern Mediterranean — in Greece and Malta, for example, communities menaced for centuries by invasion from various Islamic empires pushing westward.
St. George, in fact, has found popularity wherever an underdog has felt the need for a champion. He is the patron, along with St. Sebastian, of one of Rome’s station churches. This year when I traveled to Barcelona (which I mentioned here and here), I learned that George is the patron of that city as well. The legend of St. George fits, in an unexpected way, into one of the city’s best known architectural monuments, Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló.
Continue reading “St. George in legend and in architecture”
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 