The Church of England pulled out the stops for St George’s Day this year, probably a reaction to recent attempts by right wing politicians to adopt St George and other Christian symbols for their own use.
This included, for the first time, a national online service for St George’s Day and the production of a short film by the Church about our patron saint, which you can see here on YouTube.
They have also discovered some interesting facts about St George’s churches in the UK. There are in fact over 250 of them, including national landmarks such as St George’s Chapel in Windsor. Devotion to St George was very popular among later Plantagenet kings, especially Edwards I and III, and became more common after 1348 when Edward III founded the Order of the Garter, with St George as its patron.
There is an ongoing debate as to the oldest St George’s Church in England. A recent article by the Church of England suggests it might be the parish church in Crowhurst, Surrey, which is known to have been dedicated to St George since 1191, during the reign Richard I. Read the article here.
Within our own Diocese in Europe, where most chaplaincies were established by Brits living abroad, the patronage of St George is very common. Here in Spain the three major churches in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga take his patronage, as do churches in Berlin, Lisbon and Venice. There are probably more.