Saint George of Choziba, also called George the Chozibite or Chozebite (died c. 625), was a
Greek Cypriot
Greek Cypriots or Cypriot Greeks ( el, Ελληνοκύπριοι, Ellinokýprioi, tr, Kıbrıs Rumları) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2011 census, 659,115 r ...
monk and leader of the
monastery of Choziba in the vicinity of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. Today, the monastery is named after George.
George was born on
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
and orphaned at a young age. He was raised in a monastery under one of his uncles. His older brother joined the ''
lavra
A lavra or laura ( el, Λαύρα; Cyrillic: Ла́вра) is a type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. It is erected within the Orthodox and other Eastern ...
'' of
Calamon in the
Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...
, but George's request for admission was rejected and he was sent to the
coenobium of Choziba, which had been founded around 480 by
John of Thebes
Saint John of Choziba, originally known as John of Thebes, was a monk who was born in Egypt around the year 440–450 CE. He abandoned monophysitism around 480 and moved to Wadi Qelt, a wadi in the Judaean Desert, where he reorganized the existing ...
.
According to his biographer, George and his brother
abstained from wine in the ''lavra'' of Calamon and in Choziba. From Saturday evening until Sunday afternoon, George would observe an
all-night vigil The All-night vigil is a service of the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches consisting of an aggregation of the canonical hours of Compline (in Greek usage only), Vespers (or, on a few occasions, Great Compline), Matins, and the F ...
in the coenobium of his monastery; otherwise he and his fellow monks lived in their cells. In 614, when the
Persians invaded Palestine and sacked Jerusalem, George remained at Choziba.
A likeness of George is among the 36 saints (mostly local desert monks) painted on the plastered walls of a burial cave in the
monastery of Mar Saba. He is identifiable by an inscription. He may be the latest saint depicted, and the archaeologist A. E. Mader suggested that the paintings date to between his death and the
Arab conquest of Jerusalem in 638.
[Patrich, ''Sabas'', pp. 143–44.]
Hagiography
A
hagiography of George (
BHG 669 and
CPG 7985) was written by his disciple
Antony of Choziba Antony of Choziba, also called Antony the Chozibite (fl. 634), was a Byzantine hagiographer from the monastery of Choziba. A disciple of George of Choziba, he wrote his teacher's biography (''Vita sancti Georgii chozebitae'') and also an account of ...
. It is a conventional hagiography but offers an eyewitness account of the Persian invasion of 614 and sheds important light on its impact on the Palestinian monasteries. It has been edited and translated into English:
*C. House, ed. "Vita Sancti Georgii Chozebitae Confessoris et Monachii". ''
Analecta Bollandiana
The Bollandist Society ( la, Societas Bollandistarum french: Société des Bollandistes) are an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century ...
'' 7 (1888): 95–144, 336–359.
*
T. Vivian and
A. N. Athanassakis, trans. ''The Life of Saint George of Choziba and the Miracles of the Most Holy Mother of God at Choziba''. San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1994.
*T. Vivian, trans. ''Journeying Into God. Seven Early Monastic Lives''. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996. pp. 71–105.
References
Further reading
*Olster, David. "The Construction of a Byzantine Saint: George of Choziba, Holiness, and the Pilgrimage Trade in Seventh-Century Palestine." ''Greek Orthodox Theological Review'' 38.1–4 (1993): 309–322.
{{Authority control
7th-century Cypriot people
7th-century Byzantine monks
620s deaths
Cypriot saints