Saint George

George is one of the most venerated saints in the world and one of those we have the least reliable information about. He probably died in Nicomedia around 303, under Diocletian, before Constantine. His cult is very ancient: it goes back at least to the fourth century, just a few decades after the events, which is the strongest evidence that he really existed. What we know comes from the Passio sancti Georgii, which the Decretum Gelasianum of 496 already classed among the apocryphal works — in other words, people were already saying back then that it wasn’t reliable. According to that account he was from Cappadocia, the son of Gerontius, a Persian, and Polychronia, a Greek; he enlisted in Diocletian’s army, rose to the emperor’s bodyguard, and when the edicts against the Christians were issued he came forward to declare that he was one. The dragon has nothing to do with any of this. It arrives a thousand years later, from the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, and tells of a city terrorized by a monster that was fed young women, and of a knight who runs it through. It has become one of the most painted images in the history of art. He is the patron saint of England, Georgia, Catalonia, Genoa, Ferrara, and countless towns and villages. And he is the patron of knights, soldiers and scouts. If your name is George or Georgia, today is your name day.