what nationality was St.George, the patron saint of England?

Answer 1

Well he wasn't English.......Born ca. AD 270 in Lydda, Palestine
Died ca. AD 303 in Nicomedia, Bithynia
Venerated in Christianity
Major shrine Church of Saint George, Lod
Feast April 23

Answer 2

Good question. Most popular answer is that he was from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire (Byzantine - most probably modern day Turkey), and that he was a Centurion in the Roman Army. He is as stated the patron Saint of more than one country, and is associated with the Templers.

Answer 3

can we say he had a nationality? After all, nations were created after his time. He's supposed to have lived in what is now Turkey, but the repartition of the population and ethnics was different. He's said to be Armenian, wasn't he? Also, he was the patron saint of knights, and Georgia (former USSR state) is named after him and like England has his cross as a national emblem.

Answer 4

In Christian hagiography Saint George (c. 275-281–April 23, 303) was a soldier of the Roman Empire who was venerated as a Christian martyr. Saint George is the most venerated saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Immortalised in the tale of George and the Dragon, he is the patron saint of Canada, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, the cities of Ljubljana and Moscow , as well as a wide range of professions, organisations and disease sufferers.

There are no historical sources on Saint George. The legend that follows is synthesized from early and late hagiographical sources, such as the Golden Legend, which is the most familiar version in English, since William Caxton's first translation.

George was born to a Christian family during the late 3rd century. His father was from Cappadocia and served as an officer of the Roman army. His mother was from Lydda, Palestine (now Lod, Israel). She returned to her native city as a widow along with her young son, where she provided him with an education.

Answer 5

George is the English patron of chivalry and guardian saint of both England and Portugal. He lived in the early 4th century.Unfortunately he gets confused with the Arian George of Cappadocia It is known that he lived before him but places seem to have been obscured by fable. It is not known what his nationality is for certain.

Answer 6

There were many named St. George.. this is the earliest history
http://www.britannia.com/history/stgeorge.html
First paragraph:
"St George is the patron saint of England and among the most famous of Christian figures. But of the man himself, nothing is certainly known. Our earliest source, Eusebius of Caesarea, writing c. 322, tells of a soldier of noble birth who was put to death under Diocletian at Nicomedia on 23 April, 303, but makes no mention of his name, his country or his place of burial. According to the apocryphal Acts of St George current in various versions in the Eastern Church from the fifth century, George held the rank of tribune in the Roman army and was beheaded by Diocletian for protesting against the Emperor's persecution of Christians. George rapidly became venerated throughout Christendom as an example of bravery in defence of the poor." and the defenceless and of the Christian faith.

Answer 7

Hmmm, well taking all of the above and add the following :

Quote :

Modern criticism, while rejecting this identification, is not unwilling to accept the main fact that an officer named Georgios, of high rank in the army, suffered martyrdom probably under Diocletian. 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", a statement which implies that legends had already grown up around his name. The caution of Gelasius was not long preserved; Gregory of Tours, for example, asserts that the saint's relics actually existed in the French village of Le Maine, where many miracles were wrought by means fo them; and Bede, while still explaining that the Gesta Georgii are reckoned apocryphal, commits himself to the statement that the martyr was beheaded under Dacian, king of Persia, whose wife Alexander, however, adhered to the Christian faith. The great fame of George, who is reverenced alike by Eastern and Western Christendom and by Mahommedans, is due to many causes. He was martyred on the eve of the triumph of Christianity, his shrine was reared near the scene of a great Greek legend (Perseus and Andromeda), and his relics were removed from Lydda, where many pilgrims had visited them, to Zorava in the Hauran served to impress his fame not only on the Syrian population, but on their Moslem conquerors, and again on the Crusaders, who in grateful memory of the saint's intervention on their behalf at Antioch built a new cathedral at Lydda to take the place of the church destroyed by the Saracens. This cathedral was in turn destroyed by Saladin.

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 threatened the virgin Andromeda, and George, like many another Christian saint, entered into the inheritance of veneration previously enjoyed by a pagan hero. The exploit thus attaches itself to the very common Aryan myth of the sun-god as the conqueror of the powers of darkness.

Unquote

The bottom line is that the provenance of 'St. George' is unclear, if one takes the man then the answer would be "probably Turkish", and if you take the deed then "Ancient Greek".

The most notable feature of "Christianity", which by the way is also a gross mis-naming itself, it should read "Paulianity", as the modern Christian ( read Roman Catholic ) church had virtually nothing to do with the figure usually referred to as Jesus Christ ( even that is a distortion, read Yashua bin Jusef ). It was a product of Saul of Tarsus, a peculiar figure who ended up in a remarkably similar way a some variants of the St. George myth.

Anyway, the damsel-rescuing, knight errant-depicting, all round city saving hero was in fact Perseus, a Greek...........well, maybe a Greek. As the Greeks also borrowed most of their best stories from older civilisations he could have been...........almost anything, maybe he really was an Ancient Celt, in which case he could equally have been as British as anything else.

And finally, in these days, who cares anyway, if there are any damsels in need of rescuing I reckon anyone worth his salt would have a crack at it, wouldn't you guys ? ;-)

Answer 8

He was born ca. AD 270 in Lydda, Palestine
He died ca. AD 303 in Nicomedia, Bithynia

George was born to a Christian family during the late 3rd century. His father was from Cappadocia in Turkey and served as an officer of the Roman army. His mother was from Lydda, Palestine (now Lod, Israel).

He was a soldier based in Bythnia in modern day Turkey teh emporer Diocletians passed his edict to persecute Christians he refused and instead confessed himself to being Christian. For this he was tortured and dedcapitated. he was buried at Lydda in Palestine and was venearted as a martyr.

He is venerated also under the name Mar Girgis by Muslims, and his main monument is 'The Dome of al-Khidr' in Jerusalem.

I would say his nationality was Palestinian.

Answer 9

"Saint George"
– The Pork Salesman who became England’s Patron Saint

The ‘real' George was a rather different character from the paragon of Christian fiction. As Gibbon and others made clear, ‘St. George’ was a legendary accretion around a notorious 4th century bishop, George of Cappadocia. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia concedes that it is ‘not improbable that the apocryphal Acts have borrowed some incidents from the story of the Arian bishop.’

The future archbishop of Alexandria began his career as a humble cloth worker in Cilicia (now southern Turkey). By ‘assiduous flattery’ or other means he acquired the contract to supply the Roman army with bacon. Says Gibbon:

"His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice."

Making his way to Palestine, George set himself up in the religion business at Diospolis (Lydda), where he became a profane grandee of the ruling Arian Christians. As a wealthy and influential opponent of the Catholic Athanasius he was well-placed to take the bishop’s chair in Alexandria when Athanasius was driven into exile.

In his new lofty station George gave free reign to his greed and cruelty, establishing several commercial monopolies and pillaging the ancient temples. "The tyrant…oppressed with an impartial hand the various inhabitants of his extensive diocese," notes Gibbon. So incensed were the inhabitants that on at least one occasion George was expelled from Alexandria by a mob and troops had to be deployed to get him back into the bishop’s palace.

His end came with the elevation of Julian to the purple. The angry pagans of Alexandria (probably aided by Catholics) took their revenge on George by throttling the bishop and dumping his body in the sea. It seems highly probable that some supporters of the murdered bishop recovered what they claimed to be remnants of the erstwhile bishop and made off with them to the nearest centre of Arianism, Lydda in Palestine. Emperor Julian himself sequestered the extensive library which George had acquired.

Answer 10

According to the legend, St. George, - who was also Patron Saint of several OTHER places, - was born, in 270 AD, in LYDDA, - Palestine! His Father was an officer, in the Roman Army, - his mother was from LYDDA, - sometimes called "LOD", - in PALESTINE, - now, called ISRAEL!