Prayer to Saint George: a new text and the story behind the dragon
The prayer
Saint George, soldier who would rather lose his rank than deny what he believed, ask God for me.
I am not facing any dragon. I am facing the bill that falls due, the fear of leaving the house, the urge to keep my head down where I ought to speak.
Cover me with the kind of courage that makes no noise: staying honest when nobody is checking, not returning the harm that was done to me, protecting the people who depend on me without owning them.
Let my fighting not turn into hatred, and my peace not turn into cowardice. Amen.
In short
This is a prayer to Saint George written for this site and signed by the person who wrote it. George was a soldier martyred around the year 303; the dragon only enters the story a thousand years later. His feast is 23 April.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 7 min read
When to pray it
On 23 April, and on any day that calls for facing something without losing your composure. It is a prayer for courage, not for revenge.
The prayer above deliberately avoids the armour vocabulary that George’s devotion has made standard. Not because that vocabulary is wrong, but because the courage most people need today does not look like a battle: it looks like staying honest with no audience, not hitting back, and protecting someone without controlling them. The text tries to name that courage, which is harder to pray for because it is less heroic.
The text is ours and it is signed. The best-known prayers under George’s name have disputed origins and no established authorship, circulate in different versions, and are the object of recordings and publications with owners. Publishing one here would mean reproducing somebody’s text without knowing whose. The saint’s history, which is what most people are looking for alongside the prayer, is above and can be checked.
Catholic devotion asks the martyr to intercede: God protects, and what is asked of George is that he ask alongside. Most Protestant and evangelical churches do not hold that practice and pray directly to God. And in Brazil there is a third living reading, set out in the note below, which is not a folkloric footnote but part of the religious history of the country.
A word about the dragon, since it is the image everyone has in mind. The only dragon in the Bible is in Revelation, and the one who fights it there is Michael, not George. The picture of Saint George with a lance illustrates a medieval legend, and knowing that does not spoil the image — it just puts each thing where it belongs, which is what this page tries to do throughout.
Where this prayer comes from
When it appeared Martyred around the year 303; this text was written for Faith Flame in 2026
Very little is known about the historical George, and the Church has never hidden it. The oldest tradition presents him as a soldier martyred under Diocletian, around the year 303, and his cult fixed itself very early at Lydda, today Lod in Israel, where the tomb was. From there the legend begins, and it grew fast: by the sixth century the Decretum Gelasianum was classing the passion of George among the apocryphal writings, listing him among saints whose names are justly revered among men but whose deeds are known only to God.
The dragon is a late addition. It appears in Eastern versions around the eleventh century and reaches the West through the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, around 1260, complete with the city, the princess and the monster at the spring. It was that version, and not the martyrdom account, that became the saint’s universal image — to the point that most people know the dragon and have never heard of Diocletian.
George became patron of England during the Hundred Years’ War: Edward III placed the Order of the Garter under his protection in 1348, and the red cross on white became the English flag. The prayers circulating under his name in English and in Portuguese are, for the most part, modern or folk compositions of disputed origin, which is why this page carries a prayer of our own, signed, and reserves this space for what can be checked.
Little-known details
The Church admitted in the sixth century that his story was legend
He was not removed from the calendar in 1969 — he was downgraded
The dragon arrives a thousand years after the martyr
He is patron of England, Catalonia, Portugal, Ethiopia and Georgia
What the passages say
7And there was a great battle in heaven. Michael and his Angels were battling with the dragon, and the dragon was fighting, and so were his angels.
8But they did not prevail, and a place for them was no longer found in heaven.
9And he was thrown out, that great dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world. And he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.
The only fight against a dragon the Bible narrates, and the one who fights it is Michael with his angels. The iconography of Saint George borrowed this scene; the text itself mentions neither George nor any human soldier.
32Therefore, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father, who is in heaven.
33But whoever will have denied me before men, I also will deny before my Father, who is in heaven.
The text underpinning all Christian memory of the martyrs: confessing publicly, whatever it costs. It is what tradition says George did, and it is the only part of his story that does not need the legend in order to make sense.
14Therefore, stand firm, having been girded about your waist with truth, and having been clothed with the breastplate of justice,
15and having feet which have been shod by the preparation of the Gospel of peace.
16In all things, take up the shield of faith, with which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one.
17And take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit (which is the Word of God).
The armour piece by piece, and the inventory is worth checking: belt, breastplate, footwear, shield, helmet and a single weapon. The military language of devotion to Saint George comes from here — and so does its limit, since the fight described is against evil and not against people.
1Furthermore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses over us, let us set aside every burden and sin which may surround us, and advance, through patience, to the struggle offered to us.
2Let us gaze upon Jesus, as the Author and the completion of our faith, who, having joy laid out before him, endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and who now sits at the right hand of the throne of God.
The image of the cloud of witnesses is the common ground of both Christian traditions for remembering those who went before. What the text asks is that we run looking to Jesus; the disagreement between Catholics and Protestants begins at the next step, when the question is whether those witnesses can be asked for anything.