George the Pilgrim

Saint George the Pilgrim, known also as Moș Gheorghe Lazăr (Old George Lazăr), was a devout peasant of Transylvania who became the model of the Romanian Orthodox pilgrim. He lived most of his life as a man of prayer, going barefoot and bareheaded, and he died at Piatra Neamț in 1916.

Early life He was born in 1846 in Șugag (today in Alba County), of devout parents, when Transylvania belonged to the Habsburg Empire. At twenty-⁠four his parents married him and left him heir to their property. He lived with his wife for almost twenty years and had five children, keeping a Christian life of work, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. He read the Psalter constantly and carried it with him from youth, until he knew it by heart.

The pilgrimages In the spring of 1884 he put the Gospel and the Psalter in his bag, settled the affairs of his house and set out on foot for Jerusalem, going as far as Constanța and from there by ship. He stayed forty days at the Holy Sepulchre, then a year in the monasteries of the Jordan wilderness and Sinai, and a year and a half on Mount Athos. According to the tradition of his disciples, a hermit in the cave of Saint Xenophon told him that he was not called to be a monk, but to take on a harder labour: the life of a pilgrim, in prayer, fasting and much hardship, owning nothing, honouring priests and monks, counselling lay people and helping the poor. Once, in the wilderness, tempted by the enemy, he lost his cap and shoes and vowed to go barefoot and bareheaded for the rest of his life.

Back home he provided for his children, and in 1890 he set out as a pilgrim to the monasteries of Moldavia. He finally settled in Piatra Neamț, where he lived as a true hermit for twenty-⁠six years in the bell tower of the church of Saint John the Prince (Sfântul Ioan Domnesc), in the middle of the city, in fasting and prayer whatever the weather.

Repose and veneration He foresaw his death and reposed in peace in his cell on 15 August 1916. He was buried in the city cemetery, and in the summer of 1934 his relics were moved to the courtyard of Văratec Monastery (ossuary). The Romanian Orthodox Church has numbered him among the saints and celebrates him on 17 August (new style).