George of Mytilene
Our Father among the Saints George the Confessor, Bishop of Mytilene
Bishop · Confessor · Wonderworker · d. c. 816
Commemorated 7 April — Commemoration of the confessor-bishop of Mytilene
George the Confessor was bishop of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, a wonderworker and almsgiver who confessed the veneration of the holy icons and was exiled for it under the emperor Leo V the Armenian, dying in banishment about 816. He is the first of three holy bishops of Mytilene named George whom the Church honours.
George governed the church of Mytilene with such gentleness and generosity that the island prospered under his care; the tradition tells that he was so given to alms that he kept nothing for himself, and that at his ordination and at his passing wondrous signs were seen — a bright cloud or a rainbow-coloured radiance over the city. He was granted the gift of healing, and many were delivered of sickness and of unclean spirits at his prayers.
When the emperor Leo V the Armenian revived the war on the holy icons (815) and set himself to drive the confessing bishops from their sees, George refused to abandon the Orthodox confession, and for this he was exiled. He bore his banishment with patience, and died in it about the year 816, a confessor for the images. His relics were afterward returned to Mytilene and honoured, and his memory was kept on the island and throughout the Church.
Feast and commemoration
April 7 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 20), within Great Lent.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 1 (common of a hierarch-confessor)
O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy hierarch George guide our life in peace.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
George is shown as a bishop in the omophorion, blessing or holding the Gospel. The stored image is the icon of Mikhail Dikarev, 1892, inscribed "Saint George the Confessor, Metropolitan of Mytilene": he stands at the left in the cross-patterned polystavrion with the Gospel-book, beside Simeon Stylites on his pillar and the martyr Lyubov, beneath the Icon Not-Made-by-Hands — a signed and dated work of the Moscow court iconographers.
Disputed questions
- The Church of Mytilene honours three bishops named George in succession, all reckoned confessors or wonderworkers of the iconoclast age; this is the first (George the Confessor, †c. 816), commemorated April 7. He is not to be confused with the Great-martyr George, nor with the several later Georges.