Saint George (ca. 275/281 – 23 April 303) was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier and priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Eastern Catholic Churches. He is immortalized in the tale of Saint George and the Dragon and is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. His memorial is celebrated on 23 April, and he is regarded as one of the most prominent military saints.
Saint George is the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres (Spain), Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Gozo, Milan, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Lod, Barcelona and Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organizations, and disease sufferers.
In England St. George’s Day is celebrated on the 23rd April and marks England’s National Day: The National Day is a designated date on which celebrations mark the nationhood of a nation or non-sovereign country. This nationhood can be symbolized by the date of independence, of becoming republic or a significant date for a patron saint or a ruler. Often the day is not called ”National Day” but serves and can be considered as one. The National Day will often be a national holiday.
Currently St. George’s Day is not an English national holiday and is celebrated by a minority of English people.
Having never celebrated St. George’s Day and to be honest I didn’t know a great deal about it, the majority of the above information is copied from Wikipedia.
I’m all for celebrating English/Britishness (anything that fosters a strong community) and since St. George appears to be a well like patron saint (in the list above there’s 10 countries that St. George is the patron saint for) I think it would be good for our country to both celebrate St. George’s Day and to make the 23rd of April a public holiday.
What do you think?
St. George’s Day Poll
[poll id=”21″]
think we should celebrate it at least
Happy St.George’s day to the BNP voters !!
Happy St Georges day to you too Super BNP!!!! And all of my fellow posters too! Remember folks, Marmite Spreads! It was a Prank which was used to discredit the BNP by the media and it backfired on them, giving us the best Publicity we could ever want!!!!! PMSL! I think God is on our side for the General Election! And he sure shines on the Christian people of this fine land!
Go Get them VOTES BNP!!!!!
Jon
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Regular church-goer are you Jon?
Hi Andrew, It may be hard to believe that a REGULAR CHURCH GOER like me can belong to the BNP. Well I am and I am proud of this Christian Country and all people of all other faiths who choose to live here in peace. The Pope has Slammed Islam, The Jews have Slammed Islam and all other faith leaders have slammed Islam too! Why it is that after /7 9/11 and all other terrorist happenings in the West are forgotten about????? Well I am sick of Islam and what it is doing to people of all faiths! I am sick of the fascist parties such as Labour, Conservatives and the Liberals who call the BNP for standing up to the Islamification of this fine country!
Jon
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Firstly, the founder of BNP was heavily Christian, and that same person also said that Christianity is the only true religion.
Secondly, I think you maybe need to research what fascism actually is, National Socialism was a form of fascism, liberalism is not, in fact liberalism is the complete opposite of fascism. .
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So you think the BNP making this vid with the Marmite logo on has given the BNP more votes?
Lets face it the BNP did do it, Griffin fecked up and admitted it on hos own Twitter feed, the only thing it did was give thousands of people a bloody good laugh at the BNP’s expense and made you all look like total fools (which in all honesty isn’t that hard).
The Simon Darby made to look like a fool on the Politics show. The last night John Walker on Radio 5 Live proving the BNP don’t have a clue, he thought the General Election was May 5th.
All the BNP manage to do is give people so many laughs at them when they are making twats of themselves.
But if you want to be part of the Twatty Party enjoy :)
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How come there has been very little exposure on the TV. If it was St Patricks Day or Diwali there would be reports galore.
St Patrick’s Day has been a bank holiday in N.Ireland for 100 years, and in 2006 St Andrews Day was made a bank holiday in Scotland. The Welsh Assembly agree that St Davids Day should be a bank holiday.
There is a danger that St George will be left out in the cold.
But why wait for the government to make it a bank holiday? We don’t need their permission to celebrate English culture and heritage. Book the day off work and celebrate. If we all take the day off it becomes a bank holiday by default.
Sign up to our campaign, www.stgeorgesholiday.com, and pledge to book the day off work. Who cares if you are the only one at work that does it… you’re English, you are used to being the odd one out and ahead of current thinking :)
Book the day off work on 23 April 2012