Commontide
Liturgical Color: Red
The 2nd Sunday of Easter
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Easter
But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Martyr
Ecumenical Commemoration
George is the martyr of Lydda in Palestine, remembered as a soldier killed in the Diocletianic persecution that began in 303. Nothing written in his lifetime names him, and the church has said so since the fifth or sixth century, when Rome barred his Acts from being read while leaving his sanctity untouched. What survives instead is a devotion: a shrine, a tomb, pilgrims, and a name carried into almost every Christian language.
George is first mentioned as a martyr in the Onomasticon (place-name dictionary) of Eusebius of Caesarea, a work compiled early in the 4th century. Eusebius notes that a church in Lydda was dedicated to George (possibly referring to the shrine erected after his death). However, Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, which chronicles the Diocletian persecution in detail (Book VIII), makes no specific mention of George. This silence is significant: if George had been a prominent bishop or ecclesiastical figure, Eusebius almost certainly would have named him.
George was apparently a soldier (a miles, or warrior) who died during the persecution. He was venerated very early, and Lydda became a pilgrimage site. A Passio Georgii exists, but it is much later (likely 5th–6th century at earliest) and contains extensive legendary material. By the 6th century, George was widely venerated in the Eastern Church, and by the medieval period, he was celebrated across Christendom.
The most celebrated feature of George's hagiography — the dragon slaying — appears only in medieval sources, first attested in the 12th-century Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. It is a literary topos with no historical basis. George became the patron of warriors and soldiers, and the dragon-slaying image became central to his medieval iconography.
Traditionally, George was a wealthy Roman soldier who was arrested, severely tortured, and ultimately executed for his Christian faith and refusal to sacrifice to pagan gods. The famous dragon legend, first fully attested in the Golden Legend (12th century), describes George slaying a dragon that had been terrorizing a city — a rescue that was said to have converted thousands and led to his veneration. This legend has no basis in early sources and is a medieval literary invention. George is traditionally depicted with a dragon beneath his feet or lance.