Also known as George of Pisidia · George the Confessor
A monk made bishop of Antioch in Pisidia who, as a defender of the holy icons, refused to comply with the iconoclast council and was exiled, confessing the faith into old age.
Feast Day
April 19
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Our Father among the Saints George the Confessor, Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia
Life
George the Confessor was an eighth-century hierarch of the Byzantine Church who served as Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia, in Asia Minor, during the long controversy over the veneration of the holy icons. In his youth he became a monk and gained renown for his piety and holiness of life, and from the monastic state he was later ordained to the episcopate of Antioch in Pisidia.
His episcopate fell within the era of iconoclasm, when the veneration of religious images was suppressed by imperial authority. George stood among the iconodules — the defenders of the icons — and refused to consent to the policies that condemned their veneration, a stance for which he suffered exile and is honored by the Church as a confessor of the faith. He died in exile in the year 814, and his memory is commemorated on April 19.
Contributions & Legacy
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Defense of the Icons
In 754 George attended the iconoclast Council of Hieria, convened in Constantinople, which banned the veneration of icons. As an iconodule he refused to comply with the rulings of the council, and for this he was exiled by the Emperor Constantine V.
He afterward returned from exile and took part in the restoration of the veneration of the holy images at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, the council that affirmed the Orthodox doctrine of the icons.
When iconoclasm was renewed at the onset of the reign of the Emperor Leo V, George again opposed it, refusing to remove the icons from the churches within his diocese. For this renewed confession he was banished a second time, and he died in exile in 814. For his steadfastness throughout the iconoclast controversy he is named a confessor of the faith.
His companions & kin
The ecumenical council restoring the veneration of icons, in which George took part after returning from his first exile.
Second Council of Nicaea (787)
Notes
Iconodule confessor of the iconoclast era; exiled under Constantine V and again resisted iconoclasm under Leo V.
Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints; en.wikipedia.org
