José Luis Mansanet Ribes
Traveling brings surprises. We may be surprised by the monumentality of what we see, which ultimately is not so surprising because it is what you expect to find. Perhaps what one admires most are those details related to the daily habitat of the traveler., with one's own consciousness or subconsciousness of one's feelings.
I remember in Vienna that, passing the bus along a main road from the Danube Canal to St. Stephen's Cathedral, on its northwest façade, I suddenly saw a long title on the facade of a noble building near the canal, where it read “Cafe-Restaurant George & Dragon".
That vision was fleeting and awakened in me the curiosity of those whose patron saint is Saint George..
I am not going to make the apology for Vienna, beautiful city among the most stately in Europe, loaded with history, monuments, grounds, iglesias, etc..
But nevertheless, I had no reference to any church dedicated to Saint George; and I missed, because Vienna is an ancient city and it is known that the special devotion to Saint George spread, of Orient the West, a Europa, perhaps as a result of the Crusades, and in the Middle Ages he was the popular saint par excellence (Its traces are found in all medieval European cities). I thought that perhaps Vienna had not been so important in the Middle Ages.
But that label piqued my curiosity and, I barely had the chance, I went on foot to that old neighborhood located between the Danube Canal (is the regulation of one of its arms), the Cathedral and the Vienna River.
The Café-Restaurant that bears the name of the Patron, looks good. On the façade that faces the gardens, next to the canal, the huge sign from end to end; and on the main façade, over the door, a kind of shield with the image of Saint George on horseback spearing the dragon with his right hand.
But there they didn't know or they didn't explain to me the reason for that name.. I thought it didn't matter that much either.. In Alcoy, next to the road that goes to Alicante, There is a “Sant Jordi Sale”, with some tiles representing the saint as Matamoros (That doesn't mean it's modern.), which today is a restaurant. Later I found out that in Santander there is a San Jorge restaurant, what is already rarer in Spain, in the case of lands outside the Crown of Aragon.
What was clear is that the reason for that was that people lived there to whom the Patron said something.; Y, indeed, In some interior streets I came across at least two Greek Orthodox churches that, because they were so modern, did not have iconography of the Patron inside – or I did not see it., because many times they represent it on foot –, and it is known that in the Orthodox Church the cult of the Patron has always had special importance., hence, asking around, I arrived in the same neighborhood to another Orthodox church, a modern building, in which the Saint is its owner; but unfortunately it was closed for construction. On its facade, at the top, the saint and the dragon appear prominently in relief.
All of this led me to believe that there might be something in St. Stephen's Cathedral that would have gone unnoticed on a quick visit.. Of course in San Esteban there is no chapel dedicated to the Patron, but, following the instructions in a brochure of the same, you reach the chapel of Our Lady, which is located at the bottom of one of its three naves (entering to the left of the cathedral) and there are a series of niches, to the right and left, containing sculptures of Holy Martyrs, 15th century sculptures, and one of them is that of Saint George standing on a panel with a simulated dragon, the spear topped with the Greek cross and a shield at the feet with four quarters with the Greek cross.
Vienna, which has countless sources, It also has a simple one attached to a wall with a relief above the fountain that represents, from left to right, Saint George on horseback spearing the dragon with his right hand.
