A campaign has been launched today to oust St George as England’s patron saint and replace him with St Edmund, who was the country’s original saint before he was toppled.
It is strongly felt St Edmund should be reinstated and a petition is being jointly organised by the East Anglian Daily Times and BBC Radio Suffolk which will be presented to the Government.
St Edmund’s Day is celebrated on 20th November to mark an heroic king who ruled the Anglo Saxon realm of East Anglia between 855AD and 869AD.
According to legend, he was captured by marauding Viking invaders 
before being tied to an oak tree and, after refusing to renounce his faith, was left “bristled like a hedgehog” by a a volley of arrows (see pic). His decapitated head was thrown into the woods where it was protected by a wolf. When his body and head were re-united, they miraculously joined together leaving only a pale red mark – the true sign of a saint.
He was England’s patron saint until the position was usurped by St George around 1100AD, famed for fighting a legendary dragon, a symbol of the devil.
Very little is known about St. George’s life, but it is thought he was a high ranking officer in the Roman army who was killed in around AD 303.
He was tortured to deny his faith in Christ. However despite some of the most terrible torture even for that time, St George showed incredible courage and faith and was finally beheaded near Lydda in Palestine.
Centuries later, people are still blindly killing for their faith, little has changed.
I didn’t realise you could chop and change saints, both St Edmund and St George sound very worthy candidates for the title. I’m not sure if people care enough to want a change after all these centuries, though I can understand the local pride felt by the people of St Edmundsbury towards their saint and how they feel he was unfairly toppled.
I don’t know how the city marks the day, but Bury St Edmunds should fly the flag and pull out all the stops to remember its saint on 20th November, especially in schools.
Unfortunately, very few people care about celebrating St George’s Day, I doubt it is even on our school curriculum, our own honourable members voted against making it a public holiday, shamefully, most people know nothing of their patron saint, I don’t feel there is enough public interest to justify a change of saint. Or do you think differently?
Unlike Barcelona where they are really pulling out the stops to celebrate their saint day, could you see this happening here?
Edmund has a rather better claim on our loyalties than George, although one could advance Alban too. It would be nice to have a national day, but it does smack of me tooism and reactive to what they get up to on the Celtic fringe.
Hi, Ellee. Strangely enough, the very same St George is the patron saint of this town, Modica, in Sicily. Here he has a cathedral dedicated to him, everyone is very proud of him and on his day his statue is taken from the church and paraded around the town. It’s a very jolly occasion and people follow the saint around the streets. I think it’s a good thing to have pride in your town and its heritage. In Britain, I think few people are aware of their cultural heritage as they are here, sadly.
Welshackes Limoncello, that is an amazing piece of info, to think that a town in Sicily has the same patron saint as England. If we did have celebrations here, they would mainly be based around the pub, there is no pride here in the glory of our saints. I shall think of you next year on St George’s Day having a great celebration.
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Ellee, apathy seems to reign here. Perhaps our patron saint ought to be St Apathy?
What a fabulous piece Ellee, I always feel I learn something from you. Very interesting..and the comment from Welshcakes Lemoncello!
I suppose we are not as openly patriotic as say the States for example, and we like to have a moan, but when it comes down to it, we are really.
I am very pround to be British/English..I also think that because we don’t embrace religion (thankfully) as much as some other countries, peolpe just aren’t bothered. So many of th.ese festivals etc are focused around religion. I prefer it that way. However the fabulous resources and museums we have in this country is an idea way to find and learn all about various Saints etc.
You’ll also be please to hear that my children learnt all about St George at nursery, came home with flags and appropriate “English” food. They did the same for Scotland , Wales etc…and learnt about the Union Jack. Well I learnt something! joke!
I have travelled around a lot and lived in the States and France, all countries seem to have their good and bad points. Thank you again for giving me something interesting to read on a blog..I have to go and read some daft/silly ones now.
Celebrating my birthday on 23rd April each year – or doing the London marathon as I did this year I feel we should stick to St George!
Listen, if Paul Linford is onto something, we might as well just succomb now.
http://paullinford.blogspot.com/2006/09/word-from-on-high.html
Who’s for Saint Tony??
Richard, hi, and thank you for the link. I checked it out, it’s a cheeky post, but a fun one. We just have to ask the NHS staff if they would agree, I somehow doubt it.
Welshcakes Limoncello has kindly followed this up her end, you can see the Sicily version of St George at this link:
http://sicilyscene.blogspot.com/2006/09/our-san-giorgio.html
I don’t know that you have to demote St. George in order to encourage devotion to St. Edmund or St. Alban.
We went through a round of demotions with the saints some time back — St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel, was defrocked, or whatever the technical term is. Having a “Mr. Christopher” medal on your dashboard just doesn’t have the same cachet, does it? Sounds more like the name of a hairdresser….
and of causes if you go into the Houses of Parliment you can see that only George is allopwed to carry a weapon! The other poor saints on each of the galleries are without their weapons – I would post a picture but this would represent an unacceptable security risk to our poor MP’s
The BBC seem concerned that St George was not English but are apparently not concerned about important matters such as the fact that the future PM is likely to be a Scottish constituency MP. As a result of devolution he will have power in England that he cannot exercise in Scotland.
Hardly democracy!
I’ll keep St George thankyou BBC but I would welcome you campaigning for an English First Minister and English Parliament.
Time for an English Parliament…
St Edmund & St George for England!