George of Maleon
Our Venerable Father George of Mount Maleon
Venerable · d. c. 9th century
Commemorated 4 April — Commemoration of the anchorite of Mount Maleon
George was an ascetic and wonderworker of Mount Maleon (Malea), the great monastic promontory at the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese, who from his youth gave himself to the solitary life of prayer and fasting and attained to purity of heart. He is honoured among the venerable fathers on the day of Joseph the Hymnographer.
The surviving notice of George is brief, in the manner of the ascetic synaxarion. Renouncing the world while still young, he withdrew to Mount Maleon, a wild and lonely headland long favoured by hermits for its stillness, and there embraced the anchoritic life. By long labour — vigil, fasting, prostrations and unceasing prayer — he subdued the passions and was granted the grace of dispassion and the vision of God; the tradition ascribes to him gifts of healing and of foresight. Having lived out his days in this hidden warfare, he fell asleep in peace and was numbered among the venerable and God-bearing fathers.
Feast and commemoration
April 4 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 17), within Great Lent, kept with Joseph the Hymnographer.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable ascetic)
By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert fruitful, and thy longing for God brought forth fruit a hundredfold; thou becamest a shining lamp, illumining the whole world by thy miracles, O George our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
George is shown as an aged monk in the schema, gaunt with fasting, holding a scroll. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.