St.George Monastary

I was browsing through some of my pictures and I came upon one that I Missed (at this rate I'm never going to finish )

Located below Krak De Chevaliers is the 6th-century Greek Orthodox Monastery of St George. The spacious so-called "New" Church dates to 1857 and the beautiful ebony iconostasis is 300 years old and was carved in Aleppo. Among the many icons are some depicting the classical image of George slaying the dragon.

St.George the patron saint of such countries like England and Russia, is buried In southern Syria, in a church at Ezraa near Bosra. but has hundreds if not thousands of shrines dotted all over the middle east.

He never really fought a dragon. He was martyred at Diospolis in 30 AD for refusing to make a sacrifice to a pagan god, later many stories and rumors grew.

The dragon myth came from England for the first time in the 15th century when it was translated and published by William Laxton, the English printer, in a book called The Golden Legend. In the story the citizens of a country were terrified of a fire-breathing dragon, and tried to appease it by offering the king's daughter as a sacrifice. George appeared and fought the dragon, telling the citizens he would kill it if they accepted Christianity. The king agreed and George baptized 15,000 men. He took no reward, but asked the king to maintain the churches in his country and to show mercy to the poor.

Somewhere along the way, Arabic speaking Christians dubbed him Al khader (The Green One) due to his green cape that he was usually depicted wearing in church icons, and this coincided with a prophet in Islam with the same name. And now both Moslems and Christians mix the stories of both, and even in some cases share shrines.

In Islam Al-Khader is one of three or four figures that have never died (the others being mentioned in the bible: Jesus, Mary, and Elijah.) There is disagreement on whether he was a prophet or just a righteous servant. What we do know is that he was Moses’ guide at one point, and that he usually appears in people’s dreams to help and guide them.