ON SAINT GEORGE BISHOP,
OF MYTILENE ON THE ISLAND OF LESBOS,
ABOUT THE YEAR 816
CommentaryGeorge, Bishop of Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos (Saint)
BY D. P.
Lesbos, the most celebrated island of the Aegean Sea, was formerly, as Pliny testifies, cultivated with eight cities: of which the chief and most celebrated is Mytilene, built on the eastern side of the island, which faces Asia. From this city the whole island, at least for 500 years now since the time of Eustathius, has been called Mytilene. Among the many illustrious Mytileneans This city formerly produced men outstanding in wisdom and doctrine — Pittacus, counted among the seven wise men of Greece; the poet Alcaeus; Sappho, the poetess; Theophanes, the intimate friend of Cn. Pompey, and the writer of his deeds. Saint George Bishop, Nor did it fail after receiving the light of the Gospel from its vigor, but had illustrious Metropolitan Bishops, among whom in the eighth century of Christ flourished Saint George, from whom the Menology of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus begins this day, with this eulogy of him:
[2] On the seventh day of the same month of April, the memory of our holy Father George, Bishop of Mytilene. Our holy Father George, inspired truly by the divine Godhead and Spirit, and the strongest Confessor of Christ, was the son of noble, rich, and pious parents: whose riches he held in hatred but embraced piety; previously a monk, and on account of the desire and love of Christ with which he burned, despising nobility and glory; going out from his home, in a certain monastery he entered upon the monastic life: devoted to almsgiving, where he exercised very many virtues, but especially excelled in giving alms: for all day, according to that saying of David, he did not cease to have mercy and to lend. Ps. 36:26 Wherefore, by the unanimous vote of the Clergy, he was initiated as Bishop of the Church of Mytilene; when he exercised the same mercy in giving alms as he had previously shown. Afterwards the heresy of the Iconoclasts appeared: defender of the Church against the Iconoclasts, of which he himself was the most hostile enemy, and most ardent champion of the orthodox religion. For he himself venerated and worshiped the sacred images, and taught their cult also to others. At last, when he had performed many miracles, he shines with miracles. having been made certain by revelation and a divine sign that the dissolution of his body was imminent, he thus happily and holily departed in Christ.
[3] The Greeks in the great Menaea celebrate Saint George on this day, and the hexameter verse, which on individual days they bring forth concerning the one and principal Saint of that day, they apply to him, and it is of this kind:
Ζωὰν δ᾽ἐκ θανὰτοιο Γεώργιος ἑβδόμῃ εὗρεν
On the seventh, George drew life from death.
Moreover, the Greeks adorn him with this distich:
Ἐχει Μιτυλήνη σε κάι τεθνηκότα, Ὡς ζῶντα, Γεώργιε, προστάτην μέγαν.
Such, George, does Mytilene hold you dead, He is venerated by the Greeks with solemn veneration. As she had you while living, her great defender.
The same Greeks commonly in all the Menaea, both manuscript and printed, likewise in Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, ἐν βίοις ἁγὶων, and in the New Anthology or Breviary, compiled by Antonio Arcudio and approved by the authority of Clement VIII, have this encomium. "Of our holy Father George Bishop of Mytilene. and he is praised From his earliest nails he was carried with great desire toward Christ, and having entered the monastic life, his humility, he exercised himself in every virtue and especially in humility more than the rest, and marvelously also excelled in giving alms. Promoted to the Episcopal See of Mytilene, doctrine, he illustriously performed his office. He refuted the heresy of the Iconoclasts so learnedly and wisely that the very leaders of the heretics, struck by the force of his arguments, acknowledged their error. And although he lived in a mortal body, abstinence, yet he lived with such abstinence that he might be compared with the Angels. To him about to die, not only to himself, and his death honored by miracles but to the whole of his Church and flock, through a heavenly sign his impending departure from life was signified. From his relics flowed forth fountains of graces and miracles, by which those coming to them were cured: whence this Saint has been marvelously worshiped and loved by all." Thus there, which with a few changes on May 16 are read again in the same Menaea both printed and manuscript, and in Maximus of Cythera: and it is more fully indicated that he shone forth by very many miracles after death. From the Greeks the veneration of this Saint has also passed to the Ruthenians, who fills their Fasti in Possevinus' Apparatus with the title of Holy Father; the same seems to be shown in the tables of the Muscovite Calendar, but under the corrupted name of Sergius.
[4] Reported in the Annals at the year 735, Baronius, when on the year 735 he had indicated the more savage fury of Leo the Isaurian Emperor against the worshipers of the sacred images, proposes illustrious Bishops, Priests, and monks, who then bravely championed the orthodox religion and the veneration of sacred images, and confirmed the same with shed blood, and to various Martyrs subjoins Confessors, and likewise, he says, "George Bishop of Mytilene, he also for the same confession enrolled among the holy Confessors, whose birthday is found assigned to the seventh of April in the tables of the Greeks." The same on this day Molanus in his auctarium to Usuard, and Ferrarius in his general Catalogue reported.
[5] We have from the Laurentian Library of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, transcribed, the Acts of the Saints and God-bearers, brothers among themselves, resting at Mytilene, Confessor under Leo the Isaurian, namely David, George himself the Metropolitan of that island, and Simeon, Confessors and illustrious for miracles, with their proper Office to be celebrated together, for the first day of February: and thinking this George to be the same who is celebrated in the Menaea, we had caused them to be rendered into Latin by Hugo Bollius, to be given on this day. to be distinguished from another Saint George the younger But when we began to prepare them for the press, we first found that George, brother of David and Simeon, was consecrated Priest about the year of Christ 782, more than forty years after the death of Leo the Isaurian, and indeed by this very George of this day, in the time of the Isaurian, a distinguished Confessor, then holding the Archbishopric of the whole island. Then we knew that the same one, by the holy Methodius the Patriarch and the Empress Theodora, after the Synod celebrated at Constantinople for the restoration of Orthodoxy, in the year 842 was given as Bishop to his fatherland. Therefore those Acts being reserved to the Kalends of February, in a Supplement to be made afterwards (on which day they are all solemnly celebrated together, resting together in the same tomb), we will here excerpt only those things which pertain to the elder George.
[6] Therefore when the author, after the death of Saint David explained, undertook to describe the deeds of Saint Simeon, he flourishes in his bishopric around the year 782 he first asserts that this one, on returning to his homeland from Mount Ida in Phrygia, where he had buried his brother, found the highest Ruler of sacred matters to be our George, a distinguished Confessor in the times of Leo the Isaurian: to whom he also offered his brother George to be initiated into the Priesthood. Then in the progress of the history he narrates the signs that preceded the renewed persecution under Leo the Armenian and the expulsion of Bishop George, in this manner: "When the people had gathered to render vespers prayers to the Lord in the temple of the holy and glorious Martyr Theodora, the Lesbians are warned of persecution which lies on the bank of the lower harbor, and was chanting the last Kyrie eleison, and the hands and eyes of all were raised on high; suddenly that cross which was fixed above the ciborium of the sacred table, with great grinding was torn away and lifted toward the apse: then with its top inclined, it was piteously thrust into some hole in the pavement, and there stood immovable for some time. When the faithful people had seen this, they filled the church with many tears, crying out Kyrie eleison with long and great clamor, and unwilling to leave the sacred building, as fearing that now the final destruction of the island was at hand. The assembly having been dismissed at length, to be revived under Leo the Armenian, though with difficulty, they run to the column, and the great and inauspicious prodigy is announced to the Fathers Simeon and George. To whom the most holy Simeon, taught from heaven all the mystery of the future matter, thus speaks with tears: 'It shall not be as you fear, brothers, nor will God give this region to be overthrown from its foundations: but an Emperor hated by God and adverse shall arise in these days, who shall take away all the adornment of the Church, the venerable images cast down to the ground. Go in peace: as is the Lord's will, so be it done.' "
[7] "Moreover, a few days having intervened, a swine, mutilated in its ears and tail, and the expulsion of Saint George and the intrusion of another. and from certain signs and monstrous marks most well known to the whole city, finding the doors of the same church somehow opened, penetrated to the sacred sanctuary of the altar, and composed itself on the Episcopal throne. The sacristans, seeing the thing, were attempting to remove the abominable spectacle from their eyes, expelling the swine: but he was frightened by no threats, nor did he depart before he was bloodied with blows and cudgels. Hence again the multitude hurries to the God-bearing Simeon, and tells what has happened. To whom he said, 'Be confident, little sons, for this swine graphically represents what is to come, by God's permission,
[8] The holy Bishop therefore, who first under Leo the Isaurian, perhaps before entering his Bishopric, had shone forth, again under Leo the Armenian entering the contest of confession, must have prolonged his life to the year 816 and beyond into decrepit old age: Constant faith and he is said in the Acts cited above by a freer execration of the heresiarchs, namely of the Tyrant Emperor and pseudo-patriarch Theodotus, implacably to have provoked their fury against himself: which we believe to have been done when the Emperor summoned all the orthodox Bishops to Constantinople, to test whether by any fraud, promise, or threat he could draw them with Nicephorus the Patriarch to his opinion, as may be seen in the Acts of Saint Nicephorus himself, set forth on March 13. These things are confirmed from the Canon preaching the praises of the same Saint, which with the rest of his Office the Menaea exhibit, separately from the other Office of this day concerning Saint Calliopius; to which the premised Sticharia of similar kind begin thus, he is praised in proper odes concerning him
Πάτερ Γεώργιε, Χριστοῦ τὴν σέπτην καὶ ἄχραντον τιμητικῶς προσεκύνησας ἐικόνα, πάνσοφε, θεομάχων θράσος μηδαμῶς πτοούμενος.
"You reverently worshiped the holy and immaculate image of Christ, most wise Father George, not at all fearing the audacity of those rebelling against God." Then with more express mention of the defeated iconoclasm:
Θυμὸν ἀσεβῶν ὑπήνεγκας θρασυνομένων ἀλόγιστα, οὓς καὶ ἐθέασας ὑπερυψωθέντας δυσσεβει φράγματι, καὶ πὰλιν συντριβεντας δεινότερον διαφανέστατα.
"You endured the fury of those daring things contrary to right reason, and his remaining virtues, whom also you saw exalted above the rampart of impiety, and again most manifestly crushed with a more terrible ruin." The Canon itself especially celebrates his individual virtues: the austerity of his life, his endurance of the cross to be borne, poverty of spirit, generosity in almsgiving, rectitude of morals, frequency of tears, mortification of passions, and other such things, as well as a prophetic spirit, by which he foreknew his translation to better things, that is, to heavenly goods: it finally says that he is Ἰατὴρ ανιάτων νοσημάτων, καὶ ἐλατὴρ ἀκαθάρτων πνευμάτων: "Physician of incurable diseases, and expeller of unclean spirits": and the glory of his miracles and it concludes with this stanza, Θησαυρὸν ἀκένωτον καὶ πλοῦτον χαρισμάτων τὴν σήν κόνιν ἔχοντες καὶ σὸρον τῶν λειψάνων, ἐμπιπλάμεθα νοητῶν ἀρωμάτων, ἀξιομακάριστε Γεώργιε. "Having your ashes and the shrine of your relics, a truly inexhaustible treasure of graces, we are filled with spiritual perfumes, George truly most blessed." Which make credible that his body, dying in exile, was afterwards brought back to his church — something not sufficiently expressed in the eulogy related above.