St. George the Indigenous Foreigner in Kerala Christianity

The cult of St. George in Kerala, South India, brought initially by Syrian merchants, bolstered by Portuguese and British colonizers, and currently called into question by the Vatican, represents a complex entanglement of cultural and colonial forces. Informed by post-colonial theories which argue for the hybridization of colonized cultures, this paper presents Kerala's St. George cult as reflecting an ambivalent stance toward foreign influences and impositions. In spite of hybrid St. George's occasional expedient association with imperial powers, however, I argue that this European-looking saint is, in the eyes of most of his devotees, uninterested in foreign affairs and, ultimately, a champion for indigenous concerns.