There is no saint in the Oriental calendar held in more estimation, both by Moslems and Christians, than St. George of Cappadocia. The Greeks and Armenians dedicate many churches to him, and the legends they tell and believe of him correspond with those that are current in England of its patron saint. The Orientals do not reproach their favourite, as some incredulous historians do among us, with being the son of a fuller, becoming a parasite, a bacon-merchant, and a cheat, who was torn to pieces by his townsmen for his manifold crimes and vices, in the reign of Julian the Apostate. They represent him as a Christian hero, who suffered martyrdom for his inflexible adherence to Christianity in the persecution of Diocletian, but, before that, had distinguished himself by deeds of high heroic reputation. One of them seems a version of Perseus and Andromeda; and, as in many other instances, fables of pagan mythology are appropriated by Christian saints. After various achievements against Paynims and Saracens, he came to the land of Egypt in search of new adventures. He here found a winged dragon devastating the country with his pestiferous breath, and devouring those whom he had preserved. The wise men were called together, and a compact was made with the monster, that he should be content with devouring a virgin every day. They were all eaten, except the daughter of the soldan, and her weeping friends had just led her to the sacrifice, when St. George arrived. He attacked and slew the monster, and liberated the virgin. This legend, which corresponds with that of the old English ballad, is commemorated in this church of St. George, by a picture in the portico: the saint is depicted on horseback, piercing a winged dragon with a spear, exactly as he is represented on our coins and armorial blazonry; and so he is displayed in every one of the numerous churches dedicated to him in the East.

This fable, which is a popular legend both in the East and West, is, however, explained allegorically. The dragon is the devil, represented under that form in the Apocalypse; and subduing him, and trampling him under foot, by the saint, is emblematic of the faith and fortitude of a Christian. The Greeks call St. George the Megalomartyr, and his festival is a holiday “of obligation.” Constantine the Great built a church, which stood over his tomb in Palestine, and erected the first to his memory in the metropolis, where there were afterwards five more dedicated to him. Justinian, in the sixth century, introduced him into the Armenian calendar, and raised a temple to him. At the entrance into the Hellespont is a large and celebrated convent of his order, which gives his name to the strait; and the pagan appellation of Hellespont merged into the Christian one of “the Arm of St. George.” He was the great patron of Christian knights, and none went to battle without first offering to him their vows.

When Richard Cœur de Lion laid siege to Acre, the saint appeared to him in a vision, and the Crusaders attributed their victories to his interference and aid. The great national council, held at Oxford in 1222, recognized him, and commanded his feast to be kept as a holiday; and in 1330, Edward III. instituted an order of knighthood to his name in England, one of the oldest in Europe, and so he has become the patron-saint of England. His festival is celebrated on the 23d of April, in the Greek church; and the English ambassador at Constantinople, as if to identify our patron-saint with that of the Greeks, gives a splendid entertainment on the same day at the British palace, where St. George is held “as the patron of arms, chivalry, and the garter.”

But our saint has immunities and privileges which do not appear to be allowed to any other in the Greek calendar. At the early period of the reformation in the Oriental church, statues were everywhere torn down by the Iconoclasts, and excluded from their worship as idolatrous, though pictures were allowed to remain; adhering literally to the Commandment of making “no graven images,” but, by a singular anomaly of Greek refinement, venting their religious horror on wood and stone, and bowing down without scruple to paint and canvass. This distinction continues in all its strictness to the present day: the churches are profusely daubed with gaudy pictures of saints, to which profound adoration is paid, and the most extraordinary miracles are attributed; while no statue, or sculptured or graven representation, of the same persons, are tolerated: but to our saint alone an indulgence is extended. His image in some churches is formed on graven silver plates attached to a wooden block, which they affirm had miraculously escaped from the destruction of the Iconoclasts, and has peculiar faculties conferred upon it, corresponding with the pugnacious propensities of the character whose person it represents; and to its wonder-working powers many miracles are attributed.

In the monastery of St. George, in one of the islands of the Archipelago, is a statue of this kind, which is highly serviceable to the Caloyers. If any one is indebted to the convent, and does not pay his dues−if a penitent omits to perform the penance, or violates the strict abstinence imposed upon him during the many seasons of fasting−above all, if he neglects to perform any vow made to the saint−the image immediately finds him out. It is placed on the shoulders of a blind monk, who trusts implicitly to its guidance, and walks fearlessly on without making a false step. It is in vain that the sinning defaulter tries to hide himself. The image follows him through all his windings with infallible sagacity, and, when at length he is overtaken, springs from the shoulders of his bearer to the neck of the culprit, and flogs him with unmerciful severity till he makes restitution and atonement for all his delinquencies. A French writer, who was a firm believer in the miracles wrought by the images of saints in the Latin church, in recording these absurdities of St. George, adds with great naïveté: Les Grecs sont les plus grands imposteurs du monde.

In the church of the convent is a picture highly prized as a chef d’œuvre of Grecian art; it represents the last day, a subject which the Greek Caloyers are fond of impressing on their people. In some, the punishments of a future state, as painted on the walls, are hardly fit to be looked at. Devils riding ploughshares, and driving them through naked bodies of men, and serpents twining round the limbs of offending women. This picture, however, is less exceptionable; it depicts the Deity on the summit, dressed in sumptuous robes, and crowned like a king, having an expanded book before him, in which the fate of every mortal is recorded: below, on one side is a garden, having various departments like the pews of a church, in each of which is enclosed some celebrated individual. In one, Abraham with Lazarus in his bosom,−in another, the penitent thief with his cross on his shoulder. Immediately below, are the extended jaws of a vast monster, into which demons are casting the souls of the condemned, among whom are all the apostates and persecutors of Christianity−Judas, Julian, and Diocletian; with sundry Turks. Among the condemned, one is surprised to see a Greek with his calpac; he had been a dragoman of the Porte, who had offended the artist, and he took this not unprecedented mode of avenging himself on his adversary.