George of Amastris
Our Father among the Saints George the Wonderworker, Bishop of Amastris
Bishop · Wonderworker · b. c. 750, at Kromna near Amastris in Paphlagonia — d. c. 807, at Amastris
Commemorated 21 February — Repose of the wonderworking bishop
George (c. 750 – c. 807) was Bishop of Amastris, the port-city of Paphlagonia on the southern shore of the Black Sea, and one of the shepherd-wonderworkers of the Byzantine East on the eve of the second Iconoclasm. Born at Kromna near Amastris of pious parents, he spent his youth as a hermit on a mountain and then in a monastery before he was drawn, against his will, to the episcopate and consecrated by the Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople. As bishop he was a tireless pastor — teaching his people, adorning the churches, defending the widow and the orphan, feeding the poor — and a worker of wonders, who by his prayer turned away the raids of the Saracens and other barbarians from his coast and delivered innocent men from death. He reposed in peace in the reign of Nicephorus I and is commemorated on February 21; his ancient Life is a document of note both for his sanctity and for its report of an early raid of the Rhōs upon his city.
Origins and ascetic beginnings
George was born about the year 750 at Kromna, a place near Amastris in the province of Paphlagonia, of noble and devout parents — the tradition names them Theodosius and Megethō (Megethousa). The child, it was said, had been given to them in answer to prayer, and was raised in piety. Reaching manhood, he forsook the world for the ascetic life: he withdrew first as a solitary to a mountain called Syrikē (the Agrioserikē), living the hermit's life of prayer and hardship, and afterward entered a monastery — the sources name a house in the region of Bonyssa — where he was tonsured and schooled in the common discipline of obedience.
Bishop of Amastris
When the see of Amastris fell vacant, the clergy and people, and the local authorities, sought out George — known already for his holiness — to be their bishop; and he was taken, reluctant, and brought to Constantinople, where he was consecrated by the Patriarch Tarasius (784–806), the president of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Returning to his city, George governed it as a model of the pastoral office. The sources dwell on his unresting care of the flock: constant teaching and preaching, the adornment and good order of the churches, the defence of the widow and the orphan and the wronged, the feeding of the poor in times of want. He was, besides, a man of learning, and the tradition remembers him as a composer of sacred hymns and canons for the Church's worship.
The wonderworker and defender of the city
George's fame rests above all on his miracles, in which the sanctity of the bishop and the safety of his city are bound together. By his prayer he is said to have turned back the raids of the Saracens (Arabs) and other barbarians who harried the Black-Sea coast, so that Amastris was preserved when its neighbours were plundered. He delivered from death innocent men unjustly condemned — the account tells of merchants of Trebizond, falsely accused and about to be executed, whom the saint's intervention saved. He healed the sick, and the pattern of his wonders continued, the tradition holds, after his repose, at his tomb and through his relics.
Repose
George fell asleep in the Lord in the reign of the emperor Nicephorus I (802–811) — about the year 807 — and was buried at Amastris, where his relics were honoured as a source of healing. Some accounts give the day of his repose as March 3; his commemoration in the Byzantine calendar is kept on February 21.
The Life and the raid of the Rhōs
George's ancient Life (BHG 668), composed within a generation or so of his death and attributed by many scholars to Ignatius the Deacon, the hymnographer and biographer of the iconophile confessors, is a work of some literary art and of unusual historical interest. It contains a famous passage describing a raid of the Rhōs — a fierce northern people "barbarous and savage" — who fell upon the coast about Amastris, and how, coming to plunder the church that held the saint's tomb, they were struck with a sudden paralysis and stayed from their sacrilege until they had done penance and made peace. This is one of the earliest notices of the Rhōs (the Rus) in a Byzantine source, and it has drawn much scholarly attention; its date and its bearing are discussed under Disputed questions.
Feast and commemoration
George is kept on February 21 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 6) as a synaxarion commemoration of the day, with the venerable Timothy of Symbola, whose office the Menaion appoints, and with Eustathius of Antioch, John Scholasticus, and Zacharias of Jerusalem. The Greek Menaion gives him a synaxarion distich playing on his name — Geōrgios the "husbandman": "George, having left behind the little body, / cultivates (γεωργεῖ) the salvation of souls for many." Some day-lists also carry his memory on October 25, but his principal feast is February 21. No proper hymnody is appointed to him; the common of a hierarch is used.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
A rule of faith and an image of gentleness, a teacher of temperance, the truth of things showed thee to thy flock; therefore by humility thou didst gain the heights, and by poverty riches. O Father and Hierarch George, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Synaxarion
George, having left behind the little body, cultivates for many the salvation of souls.
Iconography
George of Amastris is depicted in the settled type of a Byzantine hierarch: an aged, grey-bearded bishop vested in the phelonion or polystavrion and the omophorion, blessing or holding the Gospel-book; he is inscribed by name and see to distinguish him from the great-martyr George the soldier, whose iconography (the young armed warrior, often on horseback) is wholly different. No pre-modern, identity-verified image of George of Amastris — as distinct from the ubiquitous Great-martyr George — has been located for storage in this collection; the entry is noted as wanting an icon, the distinction from the soldier-saint being essential to any identification.
Disputed questions
- The raid of the Rhōs. The Life's account of a Rhōs attack is one of the oldest references to the Rus in Byzantine literature, and its interpretation is debated. Because George died about 807, well before the great Rhōs assault on Constantinople of 860, scholars have read the passage in several ways: as the record of an earlier, otherwise unattested raid on the Paphlagonian coast in the saint's own lifetime or soon after; as a posthumous miracle worked at his tomb (which is how the hagiographer frames it); or, in the view of some, as a later interpolation or updating of the Life reflecting the raids of the mid-ninth century. The entry records the episode as the Life transmits it — a wonder of the saint's protection — without resolving the historical question, which turns on the disputed date of the Life's composition.
- Not to be confused with the Great-martyr George the Trophy-bearer, the soldier-saint of Cappadocia and Lydda (April 23), whose iconography and story are wholly different, nor with the several other Georges of the calendar (George the Chozebite, George of Vladimir, George the New of Sofia). This George is the wonderworking bishop of Amastris.