23rd of April: Feast day of Agios Georgios

Hello and welcome back to chiosradio.gr, on today’s episode I will talk about the feast day of Agios Georgios, which takes place on the 23^rd of April.

 Agios Georgios is the so called great and glorious Martyr of Christ.  He is the patron of shepherds and celebrations are organized throughout whole country for him. He is also the Patron of some cities in Greece like Arachova where the celebrations for him last three days. In the myth that made him a great hero figure, he killed a Dragon and saved the daughter of a king. The story goes that the Dragon forced the people to live inside the walls of their city, which made them unable to tend their fields and Graze their sheep. Every year a young girl was sacrificed to the dragon to calm him down, until Agios Georgios defeated him. This myth has its origin in a famous icon in which the saint is killing a dragon. Another more reality based believe that makes Agios Georgias admired by the Christian community is the telling of his resistance to the Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian was preparing a persecution of the Christians, Saint George presented himself publicly before the Emperor and denounced him. He was tortured in the most crucial ways to force him to give up his believes and confessions. However, he kept in his believe to god until the end, which was 296, where he was beheaded in 296 in Nicomedia. Based on these happenings, theorists assume that the Dragon in the icon is a symbol for the Emperor who got defeated by Saint Georgios unbreakable believe in God. His faith still guides many Christians today.