Saint George: A Shared Saint in the Mediterranean?

The people of the Mediterranean basin share ways of living and practicing their faith, which resist religious divisions and political manipulations. The religious landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean is more complex and is marked by forms of inter-confessional convergence. This thesis is an anthropological gaze towards a reading of political and cultural changes that affect sanctuaries and recent transformations of rites around two ambiguous shrines. Although this thesis pays attention to two case studies in particular, namely Aya Yorgi in Turkey and Mar Jirjes al Batiyeh in Lebanon, it draws on multi–disciplinary research in order to set a broader context. These places are explored deeply through qualitative analysis, while at the same time taking note of parallel work concerned with other sites such as Lod, Edirne and Athens. Ranging from the search for spirituality around the sites dedicated to St George, my findings that include spiritual as well as secular aspirations suggest a deconstruction of poles of meaning such as sacred and profane, movement and place, religion and secularity, community and individual.