ABOUT THE YEAR 303. St. George is honoured in the Catholic
church as one of the most illustrious martyrs of Christ. The
Greeks have long distinguished him by the title of The Great
Martyr, and keep his festival a holiday of obligation. There
stood formerly in Constantinople five or six churches dedicated
in his honour; the oldest of which was always said to have been
built by Constantine the Great; who seems also to have been the
founder of the church of St. George, which stood over his tomb
in Palestine. Both these churches were certainly built under the
first Christian emperors. In the middle of the sixth age the
Emperor Justinian erected a new church, in honour of this saint,
at Bizanes, in Lesser Armenia: the Emperor Mauritius founded one
in Constantinople. It is related in the life of St. Theodorus of
Siceon, that he served God a long while in a chapel which bore
the name of St. George, had a particular devotion to this
glorious martyr, and strongly recommended the same to Mauritius,
when he foretold him