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Matthew Thomas is a member of the Royal Historical Society, and former Yorkshire Party Executive Committee member.
She further described him as canonised by a Catholic born in Tunisia, patron saint of countries from Ethiopia to Catalonia, and a symbol of “internationalism and multiculturalism.”
While her appeal for unity and celebration of diversity may have been well-intentioned, her historical claims are factually incorrect. At a time when debates about Palestinian statehood, the preservation of English culture amid mass migration, and the rise of antisemitism converge into a combustible mix of protest and counter-protest, accuracy matters more than ever. In such a tinderbox situation, careless historical misrepresentations risk fuelling division instead of fostering the careful dialogue her position and experience in government demand.
St George, known in Greek as Georgios, was born around the late 3rd century AD in Cappadocia, an ancient region of Asia Minor in what is now modern-day Turkey.
This was part of the Eastern Roman Empire, not in any sense connected to the modern territories sometimes claimed in his name. His father was Greek, and his mother was from Lydda in the Roman province of Judaea, today Lod in central Israel. There is no evidence linking his birthplace or upbringing to the modern Palestinian territories, which only emerged as a geopolitical construct in the 20th century under the British Mandate between 1920 and 1948.
George pursued a military career as a Roman soldier, rising to the rank of tribune. His service would have taken him across the eastern provinces of the empire, which at the time were heavily garrisoned due to border pressures and internal unrest. He was known for his Christian faith at a time when Christianity was still persecuted under pagan Roman rule.
George was executed around 303 AD in Nicomedia, modern-day İzmit in Turkey, or in Lydda in Judaea, during the persecutions of Christians ordered by Emperor Diocletian.
Crucially, this was three centuries before the birth of Islam in the 7th century, so there can be no historical connection between George and Islam. Warsi’s attempt to frame him as linked to Islam is an anachronism. At the time of George’s martyrdom, Christians faced violent persecution from the Roman state, alongside Jews, who had already endured suppression following the Jewish revolts.
After the Bar Kokhba revolt between 132 and 136 AD, the Romans renamed Judaea as Syria Palaestina deliberately to erase Jewish identity from the land as an act of imperial spite. This was a Roman political invention, not the origin of a Palestinian people, and it bears no connection to the modern usage of the term “Palestine.”
Neither the Torah, the Bible, nor the Qur’an makes reference to a people called “Palestinians,” and all three Abrahamic texts affirm that the land was promised to the people of Israel. Confusion today often arises from conflating the Philistines of the Hebrew Bible, an Aegean people who vanished from history, with the Roman term Palaestina, and then projecting that onto modern Palestinian identity — a link that is historically and theologically inaccurate.
George was venerated as a Christian martyr from the 4th century onwards, with shrines erected in both the East and the West.
His official recognition by the wider Church grew under Pope Gelasius I, who reigned from 492 to 496, and who listed him among the saints.
Over time, his cult spread widely, especially during the Crusades, when stories of his miraculous appearances on behalf of Christian armies gained traction. He became a universal symbol of faith, courage, and protection, not of internationalism or multiculturalism as suggested in Warsi’s post, but of steadfast Christian witness. Nations began to adopt him as their patron for religious, cultural, and political reasons. In England, King Edward III, who reigned from 1327 to 1377, chose him as the patron of the Order of the Garter in 1348, and Church councils at Canterbury in 1415 and York in 1421 elevated his feast day. In Portugal he was adopted under King Afonso I after the Battle of Ourique in 1139. In Aragon and Catalonia he was venerated as a warrior saint during the Reconquista. In Georgia, which had been Christianised in the 4th century, his name became deeply embedded in the national identity. Popes did not dictate these adoptions but gave ecclesiastical recognition, promoting his cult across Christendom, especially during the Crusader period.
So, the evidence is clear:
St George was not from “Palestine,” nor raised there, nor connected in any way to Islam.
He was born in Cappadocia, in modern-day Turkey, and died in either Lydda, in what is today Israel, or Nicomedia, in modern-day Turkey.
At the time, Islam did not yet exist, and “Palestine” as a national entity was unknown. The Roman renaming of Judaea to Syria Palaestina was a punitive measure against Jews, not the creation of a people, and it bears no relation to modern Palestinian identity.
All three Abrahamic scriptures affirm that the land was given to Israel, and none mention Palestinians.
St George’s life, death, and sainthood belong firmly within the Christian, Greco-Roman, and Jewish historical context of the late Roman Empire.
To claim otherwise is not only inaccurate but also risks distorting history for present-day political purposes — something that, in Britain’s current climate of division and protest, leaders like Baroness Warsi should take greater care to avoid.