ST GEORGE WAS A PALESTINIAN
The historical record on the saint the far right marches under — and the Palestinian land, mother, and people he came from.
St George was born around 280 CE. Most accounts place his birth in Cappadocia (modern Turkey); some Orthodox sources hold that he was born in Lydda itself. What is agreed on every side: his mother, Polychronia, was a Palestinian Christian from Lydda (modern-day Lod) in occupied Palestine.
When his father died, his Palestinian mother took him home to Lydda. He was raised there. He received his Christian faith from her. He grew up in Palestine, lived in Palestine, and was martyred by Roman Pagans in or near Lydda in 303 CE for refusing to renounce his faith. He is buried in Lydda, where his tomb still stands today in the Greek Orthodox Church of St George.
The original cult of St George began in Palestine and only later spread to Cappadocia and the West. Palestinian Christians at Al-Khader, near Bethlehem, have venerated him as one of their own for seventeen hundred years. Palestinian Muslims revere him under the name Al-Khidr, “The Green One,” whom the Qur’an names. Christian and Muslim Palestinians celebrate his feast day together on 6 May.
England did not adopt him as patron saint until King Edward III in the fourteenth century — over a thousand years after his death.
By mother, by upbringing, by faith, by life, by martyrdom, by burial, and by the seventeen centuries of continuous local devotion in the land of his death, St George was Palestinian.
The cross he died under is not a weapon against his own people. It belongs to a saint who refused to bow to empire.
SOURCES
1. Yolande Knell, “Why St George is a Palestinian hero,” BBC News Magazine, 23 April 2014. Cited as an authoritative external reference by Encyclopædia Britannica. Quotes Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna confirming St George as a Palestinian martyr.
2. St. George, Encyclopædia Britannica. “St. George (flourished 3rd century—died, traditionally Lydda, Palestine) … His remains were taken to Lydda, the homeland of his mother.”
3. 9 Things You Didn’t Know About St George, English Heritage (UK official heritage body). Confirms Palestine as the place where St George “lived and died” and as the home of his tomb and the centre of his earliest cult.
4. Editor, “St George’s Middle East links and legends,” Embrace the Middle East (UK registered charity 1076329), 22 April 2024. Section titled “St George the Palestinian.”
5. Anthony Cooney, St George of Lydda: Patron Saint of England (UK pamphlet, Royal Society of St George affiliated material). States: “George was born in 270 AD to Christian parents in Lydda, now Lod, located on the Plain of Sharon, Palestine.” Author of The Story of St George and Saint George: Knight of Lydda.
6. History of St. George, The Royal Society of Saint George (England’s official society, founded 1894, Royal Charter, Patron HM King Charles III). Confirms Lydda burial: “his remains are said to have been buried in the church that bears his name in Lydda.”
7. St George, Martyr, Vatican News (Holy See official). Confirms move to Palestine, life there, martyrdom, and burial in Lydda.
8. Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica (4th century). Records the building of a church in Lydda during the reign of Constantine I (r. 306–337) — the earliest documentary reference to the site that became the Church of St George.
9.Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Church of St George, Lod. The continuous Christian shrine over the tomb of St George since the 4th century.
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James S. Coates writes about geopolitics, international law, and the decline of civilisational accountability. His books include A Signal Through Time, The Threshold, The Road to Khurasan, the memoir God and Country (published under pen name Will Prentiss) and his forthcoming Neither Gods Nor Monsters. He publishes regularly on Fireline Press and The Signal Dispatch, and his academic work appears on PhilPapers. He lives in the UK, with his family and dog who has no interest in any of this.
© 2026 James S. Coates All Rights Reserved. Fireline Press · fireline.press
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