In the Footsteps of St. George

If you have traveled to Moscow recently, chances are you’ve seen his image on subway walls, in shop windows — and even on bus tickets. But just who is that red horseman with the spear? Murad Agdzhi takes us on a trek through the distant past, as he traces the mysterious origins of Moscow’s patron saint.

St. George — Moscow’s symbol and coat of arms — has once again become the city’s own. So much so that the Moscow boss who doesn’t have a picture of St. George on his office wall — a place of honor until recently reserved for Soviet leaders — is rare indeed. From times of old, churches and streets have been named after him, and bronze sculptures have depicted him killing the dragon with a spear. At one time all but forgotten, George’s image is now plastered all over the city. But how and when did George receive a Moscow residence permit? And, in the end, what do we really know about him?

Since 1380, Moscow has related to George as a bringer of victory. Prince Dmitrii Donskoi carried his icon onto the field of Kulikovo, the Russians’ first victory in their attempt to escape the Mongol yoke. Soon afterwards, a sculpture of a mounted soldier, fragments of which are preserved to this day, appeared on the main tower of Moscow’s Kremlin. Then, in 1497, Prince Ivan III had George’s image engraved on Moscow’s great seal, and the horseman became part of the city’s life once and for all. But at that time, Muscovites were not yet calling him George. Instead, they spoke of the “rider,” whose name was Mikhail.

According to Eastern church tradition, the horseman was always depicted looking to the right, in accordance with the rules of posolon, or turning. In the West, by contrast, he looked to the left. In the Time of Troubles, St. George succeeded in exposing a western pretender to Muscovy’s throne, who, out of ignorance, had a left-facing horseman engraved on his seal. Needless to say, the first documents gave the imposter away.

Since those difficult times, a prayer has arisen about the Moscow horseman connected with the miracles he wrought. Or perhaps there were other reasons. In any case, gradually, over the course of the 18th century, he acquired a new name: Georgy Pobedonosets (George Bringer of Victory).

Still, it was only in Moscow that he was known as George. Elsewhere, he was the Velikomuchenik (Great Sufferer) or Strastoterpets (Passionate Sufferer). In general, the saint has an amazing number of names. The Moslems call him Jirjis, Khyzr or Keder; the Turks — Jargan or Gyurdahi; and the Slavs — Gyurgi, Yuri, Yegory, Yezhi or Irzhi. In other countries he is known, variously, as George, Georg and Jose.

But he is most revered among the Ossetians. Like Moscow’s Saint George, the Ossetian saint is a horseman, but there the resemblance ends. The latter is a grey-haired old man on a three-legged winged horse — Uastyrdzhi.

Quite possibly, this is the most ancient image of Saint George. Which would mean that he already existed — before his birth. This apparent paradox can be explained in the following way. The culture of the Ossetians (or the Alan, as they used to be called) is very old. Their roots are in Persia and Tibet, and there, long before the birth of Christ, legendary heroes — youths in the image of old men — were already well-known. After the Ossetians learned about Christianity, ancient spiritual values were simply supplemented by the new ones.

This practice of combining traditions is natural and results in invisible links of time and culture. For example, the Slavs call George the “beast driver” and even “farmyard god.” At the same time, they see in him features of Yarila and Yarovit — ancient fertility gods. For the Moslems, his exploits are also linked with the name of Allah. And finally, he contains qualities of the ancient eastern characters Khadir and Ilias — bringers of immortality and wisdom — who in turn passed on these qualities to George.

Wherever you look, there is a different St. George. Yet, at the same time, he is always the same. The explanation for this lies in his depth and universality, which is portrayed beautifully by an icon located in the Moscow Historical Museum. There, Saint George stands in prayer to God, holding his own severed head in his hands. It is impossible to think of a stronger image. In it, strength of soul and loyalty to faith, life and death — all the universal themes — come together.

As with any great legend, a secret historical record is concealed behind the literary images. But to understand its meaning, it is necessary to first go over the events of the story.

In a certain Eastern town, a huge dragon crawls out of the swamp and starts rounding up the young people. Finally, the turn of the ruler’s daughter comes round. She sits down by the road in tears, awaiting her fate. Riding by, George sees her and decides to stay and face the dragon. But when the monster finally appears, George sets aside his weapon and begins to pray. And before the eyes of the amazed maiden, the dragon bows down before the soldier without touching him. Thus, George carried out his feat — he proved that the word is stronger than the sword, for the word was “God.”

However, over the years, new “details” have grown up around the legend of Saint George, and its original meaning has been forgotten. For example, in the 13th and 14th centuries, the warrior took on the role of a hired killer. He was sat on a horse and instructed to kill the dragon, in other words, to break one of the Ten Commandments. But it was not for killing that George originally attained sainthood. At about the same time or a bit earlier, in one culture George became the patron saint of cowherders, in others — a symbol of ploughmen. The saint’s image is honored in both the Christian and Muslim worlds. Everyone tries to make him their own.

Of the details of Saint George’s life, we know only the sketchiest details. He came out of Cappadocia, in the east of Asia Minor, which at one time was part of Armenia. For his time, George was a very educated man, as well as being a Christian missionary. His fate is mysterious. He died very young, but in spite of the more than one and a half millennia that have passed, his memory lives on.

Some believe that St. George was executed by order of the Roman Emperor Diocletian during his famous persecution of the Christians. However, it seems more likely that the Roman emperor had never even heard of George, much less executed him. Evidently, the “Diocletian” version of his death came about after the appearance of the First Church of Rome in 494. At about this time, church leaders started to distort the saint’s life story by way of bringing him closer to the history of the Roman church.

By this time, George’s name was already much revered among Christians. This both frightened and at the same time fascinated the Roman church leaders. Suffice it to say that Pope Gelasii of the aforementioned First Church of Rome banned the existence of the saint. So, just what was it about George that so embarrassed the church fathers?

From all the available evidence, it appears that the modern Christian church with its crosses, cathedrals and icons began with George himself. Before this, i.e., before the 4th century, Christianity (including the version practiced in Rome) was completely different. People prayed in synagogues, men were circumcised and everything was carried out with extreme secrecy and ceremony.

So what prompted George to introduce these innovations? Back in the last century, a certain Professor Kirpichnikov analyzed virtually all existing versions of St. George’s life in his famous work “St. George and the Bold Yegory.”As a result, he came to the firm conclusion that one must search for George’s origins in Asia Minor, paying special attention to the Caucasus. This is also where, in his view, one should look for George’s persecutor and for the site of his execution. As to the “official” chronicle of George, which portrays Diocletian as George’s persecutor and George’s tomb as being located in the Palestinian town of Lidda, Kirpichnikov’s conclusion is unequivocal: “Impossible!”

Even though Kirpichnikov came closest to figuring out the mystery of St. George, even he never fully deciphered it. For he neglected one very important event in the history of Europe —  the Great Resettlement  of Peoples, which occurred during George’s lifetime.

From the 2nd until the 5th centuries, the vast European steppe was slowly settled. At that time, Europe was totally subjugated by the kipchaki, or steppe people, who held sway not by power of arms but by power of spirit. Unlike the Europeans, they were not pagans. They worshipped a god called Tengry, the eternal blue sky, and the religion of the steppe was called Tengranstvo. Its symbol was the cross. Icons, iconostasis and temples appeared in the region as early as the 5th to 3rd centuries before Christ.

And this is exactly what St. George’s exploit is all about. He was the first European to familiarize himself with the Tengranian religion — and he assimilated their rites into Christianity.

One may well ask where this all took place. After all, George came from Asia Minor, but the steppe is a different territory altogether. Yet there was one point of overlap where they could have met and where George could have accomplished his immortal  deed — the area near the city of Derbent in the Caucasus. This place was called “the  Huns’ passage.” This was the crossroads between eastern and western cultures between the 3rd and 4th centuries, when the Huns settled there

At approximately the same time, the first European, George, showed up at the camp of the Huns. It took him a few years to get to know the kipchaki. And then, according to documents, the Huns killed the young preacher, tying him to the tail of a wild horse, which they sent galloping along the sea shore. The chronicler Favst Busand, who recorded eyewitness accounts which later served as the basis for the legend of St. George, described it all in a rather detailed manner in the 5th century.

Another well-known historical fact practically ignored by historians is that the Huns’ flags contained other symbols besides the cross. Namely, the image of the dragon, which, by the way, the Turks considered to be their forefather.

Let’s look at the legend again. The dragon came from the swamp. This corresponds with reality: the Huns could have reached George’s homeland only from the North, from the Kurinskaya Lowland, which, especially after the spring floods, often resembled a permanent swamp.

The maiden whose life George defended actually symbolized Armenia. For Armenia was the first both to conclude a union with her powerful kipchaki neighbors and to accept the cross that George brought from the steppe. Archeological evidence indicates that the first Christian temples were built in Armenia in the shape of a cross (just like the ones built on the steppe). Up until the 4th century, the cross was never used as a Christian symbol.

This alliance between Armenia and the steppe people was mutually advantageous. According to both historical documents and legend, the Armenian tsar defeated the Persian shah with the help of steppe horsemen, and, as a result, Armenia attained independence. Starting from the year 301, Christianity became the official religion of Armenia. Ever since, the Christian cross has been called Georgievski — the Cross of St. George, and in the Caucasus, the straight cross, encrusted with precious stones and gold just as it was on the steppe, is considered to be St. George’s symbol.

Thanks to the manuscript of Favst Busand, St. George’s grave has been located. It is in Dagestan — in the mountains on the shores of the Caspian Sea, not far from Derbent. The grave is well-preserved. For centuries people took good care of it and came here to pray.

According to one of the legends, George is considered the eternally young guardian of the spring of life. Next to the grave, in a sacred forest, there is a cave with a healing spring, where mothers come if they lose their milk. Legends of non-Caucasian peoples confirm this fact. Serbian and Latin tales tell us that George’s influence helped a mother to breastfeed her three-month-old son. The overwhelming majority of legends also mention the sacred forest next to St. George’s grave.

There is also a special note in the legends that George was buried by order from a tsar on top of the highest mountain not far from the sea. All this information is contained not only in European, but also Persian, Turkish and other Moslem legends about St. George.

Now we also know the warrior’s real name — Grigoris. He was the grandson of Armenia’s Enlightener, who was also called Grigory. According to Kirpichnikov, “St. George and St. Grigory are often mixed up, given the assonance and occasional abridging of both names.”

So, it appears that the mystery is solved — and just in time for Moscow’s 850th anniversary. During the past few months, St. George’s image — large and small — has started appearing on everything from billboards to bus tickets. Although for most Muscovites, he remains little more than an eye-catching symbol, the present anniversary offers an appropriate time to remember the legend, and the true history, of the capital’s adopted patron saint.