{"id":48623,"date":"2025-04-25T06:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T06:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48623\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T06:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T06:05:10","slug":"st-georges-day-2025-who-was-englands-patron-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48623\/","title":{"rendered":"St George\u2019s Day 2025: Who was England\u2019s patron saint?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A day celebrating dragon slaying and tales of knighthood has begun, with St George<\/a>\u2019s Day (April 23) being national day acknowledged by many Christian churches.<\/p>\n

The day is dedicated to the patron saint of England<\/a>, St George. This springtime celebration, also known as The Feast of George, is the perfect opportunity to fly your English<\/a> flag – literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n

It is not quite a bank holiday or a day off from work, but you can still celebrate the anniversary of St George\u2019s historic triumph this April.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s everything you need to know about St George\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

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St George\u2019s Day is celebrated annually on April 23.<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

When is St George\u2019s Day?<\/p>\n

St George\u2019s Day is typically celebrated on April 23 – the day of the patron saint\u2019s death in 303 AD. Unfortunately, the UK does not hold a bank holiday on St George\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

What is St George\u2019s Day?<\/p>\n

St George\u2019s Day is a Christian feast day commemorating Saint George of Lydda, who was executed by the Romans on April 23 more than 1,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

According to legend, St George was born in Cappadocia, now modern-day Turkey. Once a soldier in the Roman army, he rose up the ranks to become a member of the Praetorian Guard for Emperor Diocletian.<\/p>\n

However, the tale goes that St George was tortured and later executed by the Romans for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. He became a martyr for early Christians, who later venerated him as a saint.<\/p>\n

Why do we celebrate St George\u2019s Day in England?<\/p>\n

St George is England\u2019s patron saint, shared with other places such as Ethiopia, Catalonia and Aragon.<\/p>\n

He was widely celebrated as a warrior saint, but in 1346 his position was elevated to patron saint after his recounted intervention at the Battle of Cr\u00e9cy.<\/p>\n

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PA<\/p>\n

In 1552 all religious banners were abolished, except for those of St George.<\/p>\n

The myth of Saint George was further popularised in the 13th century when it was published in a manuscript called The Golden Legend, that traced the lives of various saints.<\/p>\n

According to the hagiography (saint story), George heroically slayed a dragon and rescued a princess from being eaten. In their gratitude, the people of the town converted to Christianity.<\/p>\n

The anniversary of his execution, on April 23, is now celebrated as England\u2019s national day.<\/p>\n

What are some St George\u2019s Day traditions?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, St George\u2019s Day is no longer a public holiday in England, unlike our Scottish (St Andrew\u2019s Day) and Irish (St Patrick\u2019s Day) cousins.<\/p>\n

While it used to be observed much like Christmas, celebrations started to wane in the early 18th century. However, there are calls for it to be observed as a national holiday.<\/p>\n

Celebration often includes a feast hosted by the Church of England. You can hold your own with traditional English foods such as Yorkshire puddings, cottage pie, mushroom and stilton tarts, kedgeree, shepherd\u2019s pie, and fish cakes.<\/p>\n

Or don a red rose – if you believe the tale where St George gifted the princess a flower upon saving her.<\/p>\n

How is London celebrating St George\u2019s Day 2025?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leadenhall Market in the City of London is throwing a celebration to celebrate the day on Wednesday (April 23) that is free to attend. There will even be Morris Men performances at 11am and 1pm.<\/p>\n

There will also be music to commemorate the national event – the Band of the Coldstream Guards are set to host a free concert in The Guards’ Chapel on Birdcage Walk from 7pm. It is a ticketed event and full details can be found here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Another free event is a garden party taking place at St George’s Garden in Waterloo at the southern end of Blackfriars Road. From lunchtime, there will be complimentary cocktails, mocktails and sweet treats provided by local businesses, plus a free gardening workshop led by community gardener Frances Ward.<\/p>\n

1. There is some doubt that St George even existed<\/p>\n

Very little is actually known about the life and deeds of St George.<\/p>\n

If he ever existed (there\u2019s no proof he did), George would likely have been born in the 3rd century AD more than 2,000 miles away in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey).<\/p>\n

The Roman church itself had its doubts about the veracity of St George\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

In the sixth century, it declared that George was \u201cone of the saints who were rightly reverenced by men, but whose deeds were known only to God\u201d. <\/p>\n

2. St George never visited England<\/p>\n

St George might be hailed as England\u2019s national hero, but he wasn\u2019t actually English and never even visited the country.<\/p>\n

Born in modern-day Turkey, his reputation for virtue and holiness spread across Europe and his feast day was celebrated in England from the 9th century onwards.<\/p>\n

He became popular with English kings. Edward I (1272-1307) had banners bearing the emblem of St George (a red cross on a white background) and Edward III (1327-77) had a strong interest in the saint and owned a relic of his blood.<\/p>\n

3. England isn\u2019t the only country to celebrate St George<\/p>\n

England is far from the only country or region to claim St George as its patron.<\/p>\n

England shares St George with Venice, Genoa, Portugal, Ethiopia and Catalonia among others as their patron saint and many of these places have their own celebrations in his honour.<\/p>\n

4. The dragon was not always part of the St George legend<\/p>\n

The well known myth that St George rode into Silene (modern-day Libya) to free the city from a dragon, is actually a story which post-dates the \u2018real\u2019 George by several centuries.<\/p>\n

It may have started simply as a way to explain icons of military saints slaying dragons, symbolising the triumph of good over evil.<\/p>\n

5. King Edward I is the reason why St George \u2018became\u2019 English<\/p>\n

As a crusader,\u00a0King Edward I\u00a0took a liking to St George, and kitted his troops in the St George\u2019s cross when fighting the Welsh.<\/p>\n

He raised St George\u2019s flag over Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland in 1300, among other things.<\/p>\n

In 1348,\u00a0King Edward III\u00a0gave St George a special position as a patron saint of the\u00a0Order of the Garter\u00a0in thanks for his supposed intervention at the\u00a0Battle of Cr\u00e9cy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day celebrating dragon slaying and tales of knighthood has begun, with St George\u2019s Day (April 23) being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,4521,4884,10298,24026,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-48623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-english","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-st-george","13":"tag-st-georges-day","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114397100326902667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}