George was a bishop of Amastris, a port city of Paphlagonia on the southern coast of the Black Sea, who lived from about the middle of the eighth century into the early ninth. He is remembered as a wonderworker and as a composer of liturgical canons, and his cult is associated above all with the protection of his city against attack. He is commemorated on February 21.
According to his Life, George was born at Kromne (the town ton Kromnenon), near Amastris, to a family the sources describe as noble and pious; his parents are named Theodosios (Theodosius) and Megethousa, who according to the tradition long remained childless before his birth. After studying in his youth he withdrew to lead an ascetic life, first as a hermit on a mountain — given in the sources as Syrikes or Agrioserike — under the guidance of an elderly ascetic who tonsured him, and afterward in a cenobitic community at a place called Vonitsa (Bonyssa).
When the see of Amastris fell vacant, around 788, George was chosen for the episcopate against his own wishes and was consecrated at Constantinople by Patriarch Tarasios. The tradition relates that Tarasios had earlier noticed George's virtue and so favored his appointment despite a rival candidate. As bishop he is said to have instructed his flock, beautified churches, defended widows and orphans, and provided for the poor.
George reposed peacefully early in the reign of the emperor Nikephoros I, conventionally dated to about 805 (sources give a range of 802–807). His surviving Life is preserved in a single manuscript; its authorship and date are debated by scholars, some attributing it to Ignatios the Deacon and others assigning it a later origin.
