St George - the trophy-bearer

Seventeen centuries ago, in 303 AD, the Roman Emperor, Diocletian, urged by his friend and colleague Galerius, officially decreed that the Christian religion was to be banned, and all those subject to Roman law and authority were to offer incense to the emperor, who was until then considered to be of divine origin.

This was the start of the most outrageous and barbarous persecution against Christians. Many well-knows saints died a martyr's death during this persecution, which spread throughout the Roman Empire, which by this time had started its decline.

Among the famous Christian martyrs was George, a tribune in the Roman army, who was born and bred in a Christian family. He was not ready to sacrifice to the gods. As a miles and official in the imperial army, he could not be spared, even though tradition has it that he was a favourite of the Emperor himself. By 303, Galerius had put relentless pressure on Diocletian to kill all Christians.

Diocletian's decisive victory over the Persians by the end of 297 AD had increased the possibility of a confrontation with the Christians, and Eusebius the first so-called "ecclesiastical historian", a contemporary, wrote that the persecution of the followers of the Nazarene had begun.

On February 23, 303, a date chosen deliberately by Diocletian and Galerius, the final struggle for the allegiance of the Empire began. George, a young soldier and a faithful subject of Rome, is perhaps the most renowned of the Christians who died for their faith instead of committing apostasy.

No wonder that St Peter Damiani, in his homily for April 23, hails him as de militia translatus in militiam, which refers to the transformation experienced by this glorious testimony of the Lord, who through death, changed his fate from that of an earthly soldier to that of a heavenly intercessor.

Being a saint of the first three centuries explains why so little information has been handed down to us about the martyr's life. What we know for sure is that he was a soldier in the service of the Roman army, and a martyr of the great persecution. According to tradition, his father was from Cappadocia and his mother was from Palestine.

This little information did not hinder the spreading of George's cult. In fact, together with Anthony of Padua and Nicholas of Myra, George of Lydda is one of the most widely venerated saints of the Christian Church.

Butler states that St George was venerated at different times in every Christian tradition, Eastern and Western, and finds a place too in Islamic hagiography iii. St John Chrysostm, one of the earliest Greek Fathers of the Church, refers to him in one of his sermons and calls him corypheus sive caput inter martyres - prince or head of martyrs.

The Greek Church used to refer to him as megalomartiroi (great martyr). St Andrew of Crete, St Augustine, St Ambrose and other Church Doctors of the first millennium also have words of praise in his honour. The oldest documentation with explicit reference to St George is perhaps the Greek epigraph found in Eaccaea in Batanea which was dated by the Jesuit hagiographer Hippolyte Delehaye as pertaining to 368 AD.

This epigraph refers to "the house of the saints and triumphant martyrs George and companions".

The Passio Georgii or narration of his martyrdom, is classified among the apocryphal works of the Decretum Gelasianum dated 496 AD. Though not mentioned directly by Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica, it is considered that the soldier who tore the edict of Diocletian was no one else but George of Lydda.

Seventeen hundred years have passed since the great persecution of Diocletian and Galerius. So this year, centenary celebrations are being held all around the Christian world, in honour of those saints who, like St Sebastian, St Catherine of Antioch and others, were marked under Diocletian. In the Maltese Islands, two parishes will be celebrating the 17th centenary of the martyrdom of St George, which took place on April 23, 303.

The parish church dedicated to St George in Qormi, and the parish named after him in Victoria, Gozo, will hold special festivities in his honour. The image of St George fighting the dragon is universally accepted as an icon of the victory of the resurrected Christ over the forces of evil. Saint George's liturgical commemoration is surely the best representation of the Easter joy!