Pilgrim's Progress by Brian Morris: The real St George

Perhaps we can do this because we’re actually celebrating the execution of a Roman soldier of Greek origin, who was beheaded for refusing to renounce his faith in a purge of the army in 303 by the emperor Diocletian.

As far as we know, George served the whole of his time in the Middle East, and never set foot in Britain.

As for ‘slaying a dragon’; that’s a total myth which seems to have emerged between 600 and 800AD.

What I like about it is that we’ve taken something which originated a thousand miles away – the earliest accounts of George’s life are found in what is now Greece, Turkey and Syria – and made it ‘part of our heritage’.

We’re not alone in this; there are similar expressions of the role of St George in Poland, and in many parts of south-east Europe and the northern parts of the Middle East, especially Latvia, Turkey and Syria, today.

And, at the same time, we celebrate our differences.

There aren’t actually any frontier posts between Yorkshire and Lancashire, but some people act as though there ought to be!

As someone who’s moved around Britain quite a lot (I gave Scotland, Northern Ireland and East Anglia a miss!), one of the delights is seeing the way things are done differently in different areas.

Easter marks the beginning of a new way of seeing and doing things.

In a male dominated society, the first witnesses to the resurrection were women.

Within 30 years, what might have been a small Jewish cult had become a body spread across hundreds of miles, welcoming people of all backgrounds and previous beliefs.

And the churches of Wakefield are part of this as it continues today.

Brian Morris, St John’s Church