Of all the military saints St George was the most frequently represented throughout Byzantium, first as a standing Roman warrior and, after the 10th century, on horseback.[1]

The legend of Saint George saving the princess from the dragon seems to originate in the 12th century. The story goes that the princess had to be given in sacrifice to the dragon who menaced the city and to whom a young person had to be forfeited annually. Finally, the day came when it was the turn of the king and queen’s daughter. St George came by on his white charger and saved her just before she was devoured. The icon shows the walled city with windowed towers and battlements from which the citizens, including the king and queen, observe the miraculous event.

The artist shows elaborate narrative details including the coronation of the saint by the Archangel Gabriel.

The higher meaning of the icon does not depend on narrative but on spiritual and cosmological symbolism. St George represents ‘spiritual warfare’: the struggle of the soul to free itself from the world and our lower nature. Here the higher world is shown as the quadrant on the upper left corner containing Christ. The lower world is the dark pit from which the dragon emerges. Thus, the St George iconography is an elaborate cosmological diagram. The Divine World (Heaven) is the upper part of the icon. Below is the Firmament, represented by the plain background and below that, the spiritual warrior George who, riding a horse and taming the dragon, brings order to the lower forces of Creation. Below the dragon are the earth (matter) and the dark cave of the lower world (Hell).[2]

St George became the patron saint of England when the cult was brought back from Palestine by Crusaders in the 10th century. He is widely venerated in many countries.

[1] See Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, OUP 1991, Vol. II

[2] For a fuller discussion of the iconography’s cosmic symbolism see Temple, R., Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity, Element Books, 1990, pp. 121-125).