Saint George, known in the Coptic Church as the Prince of Martyrs, was born around 280 A.D. in Cappadocia to a wealthy Christian family. Saint George lost his father to martyrdom while still young. He rose quickly through the Roman military, reaching the rank of tribune, and after his mother’s death he gave away his inheritance, freed his servants, and devoted himself fully to Christ.
When Emperor Diocletian issued his edict against Christians, ordering churches destroyed, Christian books burned, and believers stripped of rank and property, Saint George was in Alexandria. He tore the edict down publicly. Brought before the emperor, he refused every threat and every reward offered to make him recant, and was tortured for seven years: stretched, torn on iron spikes, burned, and salted. He raised a dead man during his trials, converted many witnesses (including, eventually, the empress), and was finally beheaded, outliving, in the Church’s memory, the persecuting emperor who died a wretched death not long after.
Iconography
The icon shows Saint George on a white horse, spearing a dragon beneath him, with a princess standing near a tower in the background, a symbol of the martyr’s victory over evil rather than a literal event. An angel descends from heaven, bringing him the crown of martyrdom.