Borough of Gravesham
—  Non-metropolitan district, Borough  —
Gravesham shown within Kent
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	South East England
Non-metropolitan county	Kent
Status	Non-metropolitan district, Borough
Admin HQ	Gravesend
Incorporated	1 April 1974
Government
• Type	Non-metropolitan district council
• Body	Gravesham Borough Council
• Leadership	Leader & Cabinet (Conservative)
• MPs	Adam Holloway
Area
• Total	38.23 sq mi (99.02 km2)
Area rank	221st (of 326)
Population (2010 est.)
• Total	99,600
• Rank	226th (of 326)
• Density	2,600/sq mi (1,000/km2)
• Ethnicity	87.8% White 8.5% S.Asian 1.4% Black 1.3% Mixed Race 1.0% Chinese or Other
Time zone	GMT (UTC0)
• Summer (DST)	BST (UTC+1)
ONS code	29UG
OS grid reference	TQ647740
Website	www.gravesham.gov.uk

Gravesham ( /ˈɡreɪvʃəm/ GRAYV-shəm) is a local government district and borough in North West Kent, England. It has borders with Thurrock across the River Thames to the north; the former city of Rochester and Medway to the east; the borough of Tonbridge and Malling (to the south); and the boroughs of Sevenoaks and Dartford to the west.

Its council^[1] is based at the Town Hall in Gravesend, and the borough shares similar borders with the Gravesham constituency. As well as the parishes listed below, the area of the former urban district of Northfleet was also included in the borough when it was formed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It is the successor to the Gravesend Municipal Borough, Northfleet Urban District, and part of Strood Rural District. Gravesham is twinned with Cambrai.

Name[link]

Robert H Hiscock, Chairman of the Gravesend Historical Society, in the foreword to his book, 'A History of Gravesend' (Phillimore, 1976) wrote:

"The name Gravesham appears only in the Domesday Book, 1086, and was probably the error of a Norman scribe. It was 'Gravesend' in the Domesday Monarchorum c.1100, and 'Gravesende' in the Textus Roffensis c.1100. It is strange that this "clerical error" should now have been adopted as the name of the new Council".

Governance[link]

Gravesham Borough Council is elected every four years, with currently 44 councillors being elected at each election. From the first election in 1973 the council has alternated between Labour and Conservative control. Since 1995 Labour has controlled the council apart from 4 years between the 2007 and 2011 elections. As of the 2011 election the council is composed of the following councillors:-^[2]

There are eighteen wards represented on the Borough Council:

• Those serving Gravesend town:
  • Central
  • Pelham
  • Riverside
  • Singlewell
  • Whitehill
  • Woodlands
• Other urban areas:
  • Northfleet (2 wards - North & South)
  • Coldharbour
  • Istead Rise
  • Painters Ash
  • Riverview
  • Westcourt
• Outlying villages:
  • Chalk
  • Higham
  • Meopham: (2 wards - North & South)
  • Nurstead^[3]
  • Shorne, Cobham & Luddesdown
  • Vigo is part of the Meopham South ward

see also List of civil parishes in Kent

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gravesham Borough Council YouTube channel
• About Gravesend website

v t e Towns and villages in the Borough of Gravesham Chalk Cobham Culverstone Green Dode Harvel Higham Istead Rise Luddesdown Meopham Meopham Green Northfleet Painters Ash Singlewell or Ifield Shorne Sole Street Springhead Thong Vigo List of places in Kent

v t e Districts of South East England Berkshire Bracknell Forest Reading Slough West Berkshire Windsor and Maidenhead Wokingham Buckinghamshire Aylesbury Vale Chiltern Milton Keynes South Bucks Wycombe East Sussex Brighton and Hove Eastbourne Hastings Lewes Rother Wealden Hampshire Basingstoke and Deane East Hampshire Eastleigh Fareham Gosport Hart Havant New Forest Portsmouth Rushmoor Southampton Test Valley Winchester Isle of Wight Isle of Wight Kent Ashford Canterbury Dartford Dover Gravesham Maidstone Medway Sevenoaks Shepway Swale Thanet Tonbridge and Malling Tunbridge Wells Oxfordshire Cherwell Oxford South Oxfordshire Vale of White Horse West Oxfordshire Surrey Elmbridge Epsom and Ewell Guildford Mole Valley Reigate and Banstead Runnymede Spelthorne Surrey Heath Tandridge Waverley Woking West Sussex Adur Arun Chichester Crawley Horsham Mid Sussex Worthing

Coordinates: 51°24′32″N 0°23′56″E / 51.409°N 0.399°E / 51.409; 0.399

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Jassi Sidhu (b.1978, Birmingham, West Midlands, England) is a Bhangra singer and the former lead singer of British Indian bhangra band B21. He split from the group, declaring that they would "never, ever reconcile"^[1] and that "(B21 was) nothing more than a glorified mime act",^[2] quoting differences between himself and Bally Jagpal.

He has released three solo albums to date. Reality check in 2003, No Strings Attached in 2005, and The New Adventures of Jassi Sidhu in 2008.

Sidhu was born and raised in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, and now has a blossoming solo career, having toured many countries since going solo from the US to the Far East. He is an avid Liverpool Fc fan.

Since departing from B21, Jassi Sidhu has released 4 solo albums and one greatest hits album. His debut album titled Reality Check was released in 2003, and contained 10 brand new songs. This release landed him a place in India, it was the first step for him to cement his name as a solo act. The album contained 7 songs and 3 remixes. Some would argue that it has the "b21" sound left over as he had used the left over beats.

His second album called No Strings Attached was released in 2005, and also contained 10 brand new songs. This time round Jassi Sidhu thought out of the box and created a rock ballet type of song called honkeh. The album was fairly successful and it did help him get more people to take him seriously as a solo artist, however it was not as good as his original debut.

The Greatest Hits album was filled with 8 songs. Jassi Sidhu had redone three of the songs, Chandigarh, Din raat and Bhabi e.g. changing the music etc. the other 5 songs had the same music but saw Jassi Sidhu resinging them.

Jassi Sidhus latest offering was called "Ke Kehne" and was released in 2008. This album has 10 new songs and 2 remixes. This time, we see Jassi team up with Mr "MBE" Malkit Singh, the guy who has had lots of hits in the past. Jassi Sidhu also teams up with producer and friend Rishi Rich, as well as the man behind the smash hit Tharti Hilde and Sher Punjabi Mr Aman Hayer.

In April 2009, Jassi Sidhu released, Jassi What Happened?, an album comprising all his hits in live version recorded in the studio. It also came with a bonus DVD.

Singing Between The Lines was released for Digital Download on iTunes on 18 May 2011 and the CD released a week later. Singing Between The Lines contains 12 mind blowing tracks from the well known Bhangra artist.^[3]

He appeared on the Bhangra Breakdown show in May 2011 on the BBC Asian Network and publicly declared that this would be his last ever album although he did not rule out singing occasional songs on other artists album. The reason he gave was that he wanted to quite the Bhangra industry after 20 years (which is how long he would have spent in 3 years time) and try something new. Time will tell if this happens...

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jassi Sidhu Official Website.
• Jassi Sidhu official myspace site.
• Jassi Sidhu live at Bradford Mela 2008.

Saint George of Lydda
Saint George, 1472, by Carlo Crivelli
Martyr
Born	between c. AD 256 and 285 Lydda, Syria Palaestina, Roman Empire[1][2]
Died	April 23, 303 Nicomedia, Bithynia, Roman Empire[1][2]
Honored in	Roman Catholicism Anglicanism Lutheranism Oriental Orthodox Church Eastern Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Church of Saint George, Lod
Feast	April 23
Attributes	Clothed as a soldier in a suit of armour or chain mail, often bearing a lance tipped by a cross, riding a white horse, often slaying a dragon. In the West he is shown with St George's Cross emblazoned on his armour, or shield or banner.
Patronage	Many Patronages of Saint George exist around the world

Saint George (c. 275/281 – 23 April 303) was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a soldier in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic (Western and Eastern Rites), Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox churches. He is immortalized in the tale of Saint George and the Dragon and is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. His memorial is celebrated on 23 April, and he is regarded as one of the most prominent military saints.

Many Patronages of Saint George exist around the world, including: Georgia, England, Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Botoşani, Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Timişoara, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Kragujevac, Kumanovo, Ljubljana, Pérouges, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lod, Lviv, Barcelona, Moscow, Tamworth and the Maltese island of Gozo, as well as of the Scout Movement^[3] and a wide range of professions, organizations and disease sufferers.

Life of saint George[link]

Historians have debated the exact details of the birth of Saint George for over a century, although the approximate date of his death is subject to little debate.^[4][5] The Catholic Encyclopedia takes the position that there seems to be no ground for doubting the historical existence of Saint George, but that little faith can be placed in some of the fanciful stories about him.^[6]

The work of the Bollandists Danile Paperbroch, Jean Bolland and Godfrey Henschen in the 17th century was one of the first pieces of scholarly research to establish the historicity of the saint's existence via their publications in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca and paved the way for other scholars to dismiss the medieval legends.^[7][8] Pope Gelasius stated that George was among those saints "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God."^[9]

The traditional legends have offered a historicised narration of George's encounter with a dragon: see "St. George and the Dragon" below. The modern legend that follows below is synthesised from early and late hagiographical sources, omitting the more fantastical episodes, to narrate a purely human military career in closer harmony with modern expectations of reality. Chief among the legendary sources about the saint is the Golden Legend, which remains the most familiar version in English owing to William Caxton's 15th-century translation.^[10]

It is likely that Saint George was born to a Christian noble family in Lod, Syria Palaestina during the late third century between about 275 AD and 285 AD, and he died in Nicomedia.^[1][2] His father, Gerontius, was a Roman army official from Cappadocia and his mother, Polychronia, was from Palestine. They were both Christians and from noble families of Anici, so the child was raised with Christian beliefs. They decided to call him Georgius (Latin) or Geōrgios (Greek), meaning "worker of the land". At the age of 14, George lost his father; a few years later, George's mother, Polychronia, died.^{[11][12][13][14]} Eastern accounts give the names of his parents as Anastasius and Theobaste.^{[citation needed]}

Saint George Killing the Dragon, 1434/35, by Martorell

Then George decided to go to Nicomedia, the imperial city of that time, and present himself to Emperor Diocletian to apply for a career as a soldier. Diocletian welcomed him with open arms, as he had known his father, Gerontius — one of his finest soldiers. By his late 20s, George was promoted to the rank of Tribunus and stationed as an imperial guard of the Emperor at Nicomedia.^[15]

In the year AD 302, Diocletian (influenced by Galerius) issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods of the time. However George objected and with the courage of his faith approached the Emperor and ruler. Diocletian was upset, not wanting to lose his best tribune and the son of his best official, Gerontius. George loudly renounced the Emperor's edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Roman gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted.^[16]

Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself. After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on April 23, 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians as well, and so they joined George in martyrdom. His body was returned to Lydda in Palestine for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.^[17][18]:166

Although the above distillation of the legend of George connects him to the conversion of Athanasius, who according to Rufinus was brought up by Christian ecclesiastical authorities from a very early age,^[19] Edward Gibbon^[20][21] argued that George, or at least the legend from which the above is distilled, is based on George of Cappadocia,^[22][23] a notorious Arian bishop who was Athanasius' most bitter rival, who in time became Saint George of England. According to Professor Bury, Gibbon's latest editor, "this theory of Gibbon's has nothing to be said for it". He adds that: "the connection of St. George with a dragon-slaying legend does not relegate him to the region of the myth".^[24]

In 1856 Ralph Waldo Emerson published a book of essays entitled "English Traits". In it, he wrote a paragraph on the history of Saint George. Emerson compared the legend of Saint George to the legend of Amerigo Vespucci, calling the former "an impostor" and the latter "a thief".^[25][26] The editorial notes appended to the 1904 edition of Emerson's complete works state that Emerson based his account on the work of Gibbon, and that current evidence seems to show that real St. George was not George the Arian of Cappadocia.^[25] Merton M. Sealts also quotes Edward Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson's youngest son as stating that he believed his father's account was derived from Gibbon and that the real St. George "was apparently another who died two generations earlier".^[27]

Saint George and the dragon[link]

Eastern Orthodox depictions of Saint George slaying a dragon often include the image of the young maiden who looks on from a distance. The standard iconographic interpretation of the image icon is that the dragon represents both Satan (Rev. 12:3) and the Roman Empire. The young maiden is none other than the wife of Diocletian, Alexandra. Thus, the image as interpreted through the language of Byzantine Iconography, is an image of the martyrdom of the saint.

The episode of St George and the Dragon was a legend^[28] brought back with the Crusaders and retold with the courtly appurtenances belonging to the genre of Romance. The earliest known depiction of the legend is from early eleventh-century Cappadocia, (in the iconography of the Eastern Orthodox Church, George had been depicted as a soldier since at least the seventh century); the earliest known surviving narrative text is an eleventh-century Georgian text.

White George on the coat of arms of Georgia.

In the fully developed Western version, which developed as part of the Golden Legend, a dragon or crocodile makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of "Silene" (perhaps modern Cyrene in Libya or the city of Lydda in the Holy Land, depending on the source). Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the Cross,^[29] slays the dragon, and rescues the princess. The grateful citizens abandon their ancestral paganism and convert to Christianity.

The dragon motif was first combined with the standardised Passio Georgii in Vincent of Beauvais' encyclopaedic Speculum Historiale and then in Jacobus de Voragine's "Golden Legend," which guaranteed its popularity in the later Middle Ages as a literary and pictorial subject.

The parallels with Perseus and Andromeda are inescapable. In the allegorical reading, the dragon embodies a suppressed pagan cult.^[30] The story has other roots that predate Christianity. Examples such as Sabazios, the sky father, who was usually depicted riding on horseback, and Zeus's defeat of Typhon the Titan in Greek mythology, along with examples from Germanic and Vedic traditions, have led a number of historians, such as Loomis, to suggest that George is a Christianized version of older deities in Indo-European culture.

In the medieval romances, the lance with which St George slew the dragon was called Ascalon, named after the city of Ashkelon in the Levant.^[31]

Veneration as a martyr[link]

The martyrdom of Saint George, by Paolo Veronese, 1564

A church built in Lydda during the reign of Constantine I (reigned 306–37), was consecrated to "a man of the highest distinction", according to the church history of Eusebius of Caesarea; the name of the patron^[32] was not disclosed, but later he was asserted to have been George.

By the time of the Muslim conquest in the seventh century, a basilica dedicated to the saint in Lydda existed.^[33] The church was destroyed in 1010 but was later rebuilt and dedicated to Saint George by the Crusaders. In 1191 and during the conflict known as the Third Crusade (1189–92), the church was again destroyed by the forces of Saladin, Sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty (reigned 1171–93). A new church was erected in 1872 and is still standing.

During the fourth century the veneration of George spread from Palestine through Lebanon to the rest of the Eastern Roman Empire – though the martyr is not mentioned in the Syriac Breviarium^[18] – and Georgia. In Georgia the feast day on November 23 is credited to St Nino of Cappadocia, who in Georgian hagiography is a relative of St George, credited with bringing Christianity to the Georgians in the fourth century. By the fifth century, the cult of Saint George had reached the Western Roman Empire as well: in 494, George was canonized as a saint by Pope Gelasius I, among those "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to [God]."

In England the earliest dedication to George, who was mentioned among the martyrs by Bede, is a church at Fordington, Dorset, that is mentioned in the wars of Alfred the Great. "Saint George and his feast day began to gain more widespread fame among all Europeans, however, from the time of the Crusades."^[34] The St. George's flag, a red cross on a white field, was adopted by England and the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Genoese fleet during the Crusades, and the English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this privilege.^{[citation needed]} An apparition of George heartened the Franks at the siege of Antioch, 1098, and made a similar appearance the following year at Jerusalem. Chivalric military Order of St. George were established in Aragon (1201), Genoa, Hungary, and by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor,^[35] and in England the Synod of Oxford, 1222 declared St George's Day a feast day in the kingdom of England. Edward III put his Order of the Garter under the banner of St. George, probably in 1348. The chronicler Froissart observed the English invoking St. George as a battle cry on several occasions during the Hundred Years' War. In his rise as a national saint George was aided by the very fact that the saint had no legendary connection with England, and no specifically localized shrine, as of Thomas Becket at Canterbury: "Consequently, numerous shrines were established during the late fifteenth century," Muriel C. McClendon has written,^[36] "and his did not become closely identified with a particular occupation or with the cure of a specific malady."

The establishment of George as a popular saint and protective giant^[37] in the West that had captured the medieval imagination was codified by the official elevation of his feast to a festum duplex^[38] at a church council in 1415, on the date that had become associated with his martyrdom, 23 April. There was wide latitude from community to community in celebration of the day across late medieval and early modern England,^[39] and no uniform "national" celebration elsewhere, a token of the popular and vernacular nature of George's cultus and its local horizons, supported by a local guild or confraternity under George's protection, or the dedication of a local church. When the Reformation in England severely curtailed the saints' days in the calendar, St. George's Day was among the holidays that continued to be observed.

Sources[link]

The Coat of Arms of Moscow depicts a horseman often informally identified with Saint George.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the earliest text preserving fragments of George's narrative is in an Acta Sanctorum identified by Hippolyte Delehaye of the scholarly Bollandists to be a palimpsest of the fifth century. However, this Acta Sancti Georgii was soon banned as heresy by Pope Gelasius I (in 496).

The compiler of this Acta, according to Hippolyte Delehaye "confused the martyr with his namesake, the celebrated George of Cappadocia, the Arian intruder into the see of Alexandria and enemy of St. Athanasius". A critical edition of a Syriac Acta of Saint George, accompanied by an annotated English translation was published by E.W. Brooks (1863–1955) in 1925. The hagiography was originally written in Greek.

In Sweden, the princess rescued by Saint George is held to represent the kingdom of Sweden, while the dragon represents an invading army. Several sculptures of Saint George battling the dragon can be found in Stockholm, the earliest inside Storkyrkan ("The Great Church") in the Old Town.

The façade of architect Antoni Gaudi's famous Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Spain depicts this allegory.

In Islamic cultures[link]

Saint George is somewhat of an exception among saints and legends, in that he is known and respected by Muslims, as well as venerated by Christians throughout the Middle East, from Egypt to Asia Minor.^[40] His stature in these regions derives from the fact that his figure has become somewhat of a composite character mixing elements from Biblical, Quranic and folkloric sources, at times being partially identified with Al-Khidr.^[40] He is said to have killed a dragon near the sea in Beirut and at the beginning of the 20th century Muslim women used to visit his shrine in the area to pray to him.^[40]

Feast days[link]

In the General Calendar of the Roman Rite the feast of Saint George is on April 23(or an easier way to remember it is 23/4). In the Tridentine Calendar it was given the rank of "Semidouble". In Pope Pius XII's 1955 calendar this rank is reduced to "Simple". In Pope John XXIII's 1960 calendar the celebration to just a "Commemoration". In Pope Paul VI's 1969 calendar it is raised to the level of an optional "Memorial". In some countries, such as England, the rank is higher.

St George is very much honoured by the Eastern Orthodox Church, wherein he is referred to as a "Great Martyr", and in Oriental Orthodoxy overall. His major feast day is on April 23 (Julian Calendar April 23 currently corresponds to Gregorian Calendar May 6). If, however, the feast occurs before Easter, it is celebrated on Easter Monday instead. The Russian Orthodox Church also celebrates two additional feasts in honour of St. George: one on November 3 commemorating the consecration of a cathedral dedicated to him in Lydda during the reign Constantine the Great (305–37). When the church was consecrated, the relics of the St. George were transferred there. The other feast on November 26 for a church dedicated to him in Kiev, ca. 1054.

In Egypt the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria refers to St George as the "Prince of Martyrs" and celebrates his martyrdom on the 23rd of Paremhat of the Coptic Calendar equivalent to May 1. The Copts also celebrate the consecration of the first church dedicated to him on June 10.

Patronages[link]

St George's monument in Tbilisi, Georgia.

A highly celebrated saint in both the Western and Eastern Christian churches, a large number of Patronages of Saint George exist throughout the world.^[41]

St. George is the patron saint of England; his cross forms the national flag of England, and features within the Union Flag of the United Kingdom. Traces of the cult of Saint George in England pre-date the Norman Conquest in the eleventh century;^{[citation needed]} by the fourteenth century the saint had been declared both the patron saint and the protector of the royal family.^[42]

The country of Georgia, where devotions to the saint date back to the fourth century, is not technically named after the saint, but is a well-attested backward derivation of the English name. However, a large number of towns and cities around the world are. Saint George is one of the patron Saints of Georgia; the name Georgia (Sakartvelo in Georgian) is an anglicisation of Gurj, derived from the Persian word for the frightening and heroic people in that territory.^[43] However, chronicles describing the land as Georgie or Georgia in French and English, date from the early Middle Ages "because of their special reverence for Saint George",^[44] but these accounts have been seen as folk etymology;^{[citation needed]} compare Land of Prester John.

There are exactly 365 Orthodox churches in Georgia named after Saint George according to the number of days in a year. According to myth, St. George was cut into 365 pieces after he fell in battle and every single piece was spread throughout the entire country.^[45][46][47] According to another myth, Saint George appeared in person during the Battle of Didgori to support the Georgian victory over the Seldjuk army and the Georgian uprising against Persian rule. Saint George is considered by many Georgians to have special meaning as a symbol of national liberation.^[48]

Devotions to Saint George in Portugal date back to the twelfth century, and Saint Constable attributed the victory of the Portuguese in the battle of Aljubarrota in the fourteenth century to Saint George. During the reign of King John I (1357–1433) Saint George became the patron saint of Portugal and the King ordered that the saint's image on the horse be carried in the Corpus Christi procession. In fact, the Portuguese Army motto means Portugal and Saint George, in perils and in efforts of war.^[49]

Saint George is also one of the patron saints of the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo. In a battle between the Maltese and the Moors, Saint George was alleged to have been seen with Saint Paul and Saint Agata, protecting the Maltese. Besides being the patron of Victoria where St. George's Basilica, Malta is dedicated to him, St George is the protector of the island Gozo.^[50]

Interfaith Shrine[link]

Saint George dragged through the streets (detail), by Bernardo Martorell, 15th century

There is a tradition in the Holy Land of Christians and Muslim going to an Eastern Orthodox shrine of St. George at Beith Jala, Jews also attending the site in the belief that the prophet Elijah was buried there. This is testified to by Elizabeth Finn in 1866, where she wrote, "St. George killed the dragon in this country Palestine; and the place is shown close to Beirut (Lebanon). Many churches and convents are named after him. The church at Lydda is dedicated to St. George: so is a convent near Bethlehem, and another small one just opposite the Jaffa gate; and others beside. The Arabs believe that St. George can restore mad people to their senses; and to say a person has been sent to St. George's, is equivalent to saying he has been sent to a madhouse. It is singular that the Moslem Arabs share this veneration for St. George, and send their mad people to be cured by him, as well as the Christians. But they commonly call him El Khudder —The Green—according to their favourite manner of using epithets instead of names. Why he should be called green, however, I cannot tell—unless it is from the colour of his horse. Gray horses are called green in Arabic."^[51] A possible explanation for this colour reference is Al Khidr, the erstwhile tutor of Moses, gained his name from having sat in a barren desert, turning it into a lush green paradise.

William Dalrymple reviewing the literature in 1999 tells us that J. E. Hanauer in his 1907 book Folklore of the Holy Land: Muslim, Christian and Jewish "mentioned a shrine in the village of Beit Jala, beside Bethlehem, which at the time was frequented by all three of Palestine's religious communities. Christians regarded it as the birthplace of St. George, Jews as the burial place of the Prophet Elias. According to Hanauer, in his day the monastery was "a sort of madhouse. Deranged persons of all the three faiths are taken thither and chained in the court of the chapel, where they are kept for forty days on bread and water, the Eastern Orthodox priest at the head of the establishment now and then reading the Gospel over them, or administering a whipping as the case demands.'^[52] In the 1920s, according to Taufiq Canaan's Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine, nothing seemed to have changed, and all three communities were still visiting the shrine and praying together."^[53]

Dalrymple himself visited the place in 1995. "I asked around in the Christian Quarter in Jerusalem, and discovered that the place was very much alive. With all the greatest shrines in the Christian world to choose from, it seemed that when the local Arab Christians had a problem – an illness, or something more complicated: a husband detained in an Israeli prison camp, for example – they preferred to seek the intercession of St George in his grubby little shrine at Beit Jala rather than praying at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem."^[53] He asked the priest at the shrine "Do you get many Muslims coming here?" The priest replied, "We get hundreds! Almost as many as the Christian pilgrims. Often, when I come in here, I find Muslims all over the floor, in the aisles, up and down."^[53][54][55]

The Encyclopædia Britannica quotes G.A. Smith in his Historic Geography of the Holy Land p. 164 saying "The Mahommedans who usually identify St. George with the prophet Elijah, at Lydda confound his legend with one about Christ himself. Their name for Antichrist is Dajjal, and they have a tradition that Jesus will slay Antichrist by the gate of Lydda. The notion sprang from an ancient bas-relief of George and the Dragon on the Lydda church. But Dajjal may be derived, by a very common confusion between n and l, from Dagon, whose name two neighbouring villages bear to this day, while one of the gates of Lydda used to be called the Gate of Dagon."^[56]

Colours and flag[link]

St George's cross

The "Colours of Saint George", or St George's Cross are a white flag with a red cross, frequently borne by entities over which he is patron (e.g. the Republic of Genoa and then Liguria, England, Georgia, Catalonia, Aragon, etc.).

The cross was originally the personal flag of another saint and key Christian figure, St. Ambrose. Adopted by the city of Milan (of which he was Archbishop) at least as early as the Ninth century, its use spread over Northern Italy including Genoa. Genoa's patron saint was St. George and through the flag's use by the vast Genoese trading fleet, the association was carried throughout Europe.^{[citation needed]}

The same colour scheme was used by Viktor Vasnetsov for the façade of the Tretyakov Gallery, in which some of the most famous St. George icons are exhibited and which displays St. George as the coat of arms of Moscow over its entrance.

In 1606, the flag of England (St. George's Cross), and the flag of Scotland (St. Andrew's Cross), were joined together to create the Union Flag.^[57]

Iconography and models[link]

Byzantine icon of St. George, Athens Greece

St. George is most commonly depicted in early icons, mosaics and frescos wearing armour contemporary with the depiction, executed in gilding and silver colour, intended to identify him as a Roman soldier. After the Fall of Constantinople and the association of St George with the crusades, he is more often portrayed mounted upon a white horse.

At the same time St George began to be associated with St. Demetrius, another early soldier saint. When the two saints are portrayed together mounted upon horses, they may be likened to earthly manifestations of the archangels Michael and Gabriel. St George is always depicted in Eastern traditions upon a white horse and St. Demetrius on a red horse^[58] St George can also be identified in the act of spearing a dragon, unlike St Demetrius, who is sometimes shown spearing a human figure, understood to represent Maximian.

A 2003 Vatican stamp issued on the anniversary of the Saint's death depicts an armoured Saint George atop a white horse, killing the dragon.^[59]

During the early second millennium, George came to be seen as the model of chivalry, and during this time was depicted in works of literature, such as the medieval romances.

Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, compiled the Legenda Sanctorum, (Readings of the Saints) also known as Legenda Aurea (the Golden Legend) for its worth among readers. Its 177 chapters (182 in other editions) contain the story of Saint George.

Modern Russians interpret the icon not as a killing but as a struggle, against ourselves and the evil among us.^{[citation needed]} The dragon never dies but the saint persists with his horse (will and support of the people) and his spear (technical means).^{[citation needed]} In Eastern Orthodox Christianity it is possible to find Icons of St.George riding on Black horse, as well, there are various examples in Russian Iconography, like the Icon in British Museum Collection.

See also[link]

St George's statue at Prague Castle

• Bristol, England, which has a district called Saint George and also a park bearing that name
• Diada de Sant Jordi
• Dragon Hill, Uffington
• Frithjof Schuon
• Georgslied, 9th-century Old High German poem about the life of Saint George
• Knights of St. George
• One Good Knight (a novel) Andres Dealencar.
• Paladin
• Uastyrdzhi
• St George's Church, churches dedicated to St. George
• St. George Dragons (sports)
• St. George's, Bermuda
• The Magic Sword, 1961 film loosely based on the legend of St. George and the Dragon
• Patrick Woodroffe, author of several poems about St George collated in a book called Hallelujah Anyway

Gallery[link]

For a larger gallery, please see: Saint George gallery.

• 

  A 15th-century icon of St. George from Novgorod.

• 

  Raphael, 1505-1506

• 

  Bulgarian Orthodox icon of St. George fighting the dragon.

• 

  A Saint George sign on a seminary gate, Germany

• 

  Scenes from the life of St. George, Kremikovtsi Monastery, Bulgaria.

• 

  St. Georg as a martyr: St. George's Collegiate Church in Tübingen

• 

  12th century depiction of St. George in a church at the Russian village of Staraya Ladoga.

• 

  A 15th-century battle-flag of Stephen the Great of Moldavia representing St. George.

• 

  British

• 

  Russian

• 

  Thessaloniki, Greece

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Brooks, E.W., 1925. Acts of Saint George in series Analecta Gorgiana 8 (Gorgias Press).
• Burgoyne, Michael H. 1976. A Chronological Index to the Muslim Monuments of Jerusalem. In The Architecture of Islamic Jerusalem. Jerusalem: The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
• Alban Butler, Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, pp. 148–150. "George, Martyr, Protector of the Kingdom of England" (on-line text^{[dead link]})
• Gabidzashvili, Enriko. 1991. Saint George: In Ancient Georgian Literature. Armazi – 89: Tbilisi, Georgia.
• Good, Jonathan, 2009. The Cult of Saint George in Medieval England (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press).
• Loomis, C. Grant, 1948. White Magic, An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend (Cambridge: Medieval Society of America)
• Natsheh, Yusuf. 2000. "Architectural survey", in Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City 1517–1917. Edited by Sylvia Auld and Robert Hillenbrand (London: Altajir World of Islam Trust) pp 893–899.
• Whatley, E. Gordon, editor, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch, 2004. St. George and the Dragon in the South English Legendary (East Midland Revision, c. 1400) Originally published in Saints' Lives in Middle English Collections

(Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications) (On-line Introduction)

• Prof. George Menachery, Saint Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India. Vol.II Trichur – 73.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saint George

• St. George and the Dragon, free illustrated book based on 'The Seven Champions' by Richard Johnson (1596)
• Archnet
• Saint George and the Dragon links and pictures (more than 125), from Dragons in Art and on the Web
• Story of St. George from The Golden Legends
• Saint George and the Boy Scouts, including a woodcut of a Scout on horseback slaying a dragon
• A prayer for St George's Day
• St. George
• St. George and the Dragon: An Introduction
• Greatmartyr, Victory-bearer and Wonderworker George Orthodox icon and synaxarion for April 23
• Dedication of the Church of the Greatmartyr George in Lydia Icon and synaxarion for November 3
• Dedication of the Church of the Greatmartyr George at Kiev Icon and synaxarion for November 26
• St. George in the church in Plášťovce,(Palást) in Slovakia
• The St George Orthodox Military Association
• Famous Georgian Pilgrim Center in India St. George Orthodox Church Puthuppally, Kerala, India