SAINT GEORGE - SAINT OF THE DAY
St. George
He was born in between the years 275285 A.D. in Lydda, now in Israel, in a Greek noble family. His father was Gerontios, a Greek officer in the Roman Army and mother Polychronia. His name in Greek is Georgios, meaning 'worker of the land'. After the death of his parents, George went to Nicomedia and applied for a soldier job before Emperor Diocletian. Since the Emperor knew George’s father and he welcomed him for the job. He was promoted as a Tribune at the age of 20 years and stationed as an Imperial guard of the Emperor. But when the Emperor Diocletian issued an edict in the year 302 at the advice of his Caesar Gelarius that every soldier should sacrifice to the Roman Gods, George refused to worship the Roman Gods and disobeyed the edict. Emperor Diocletian tried to change the mind of George because of his friendship with the father of George but George sternly refused to worship the Roman Gods. So on the orders of the Emperor Diocletian, George was tortured and killed. On witnessing the suffering of George, Empress Alexandra (wife of Emperor Diocletian) became a Christian. There is a legend about George that once a dragon nests in a spring that supplied water to the city. The local people offered a sheep or a maiden to the dragon to appease it to collect water from the spring. But one day the lot fell in the name of the princess of the area. The people refused the request of the king to spare his daughter. When the princess was reaching the spring, George accidently came in that way and saw the dragon. He saved himself from the dragon by a sign of the cross and then killed it and saved the princess. The people in that area immediately abandoned paganism and converted to Christianity. For this reason only, St. George is depicted in pictures as fighting a dragon. A church was constructed by Emperor Constantine in Lydda to a 'man of the highest distinction' and the man is only St. George.
St. George was canonized by pope GelasiusI in the year 494.
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