Holy Glorious Great Martyr George

This is a printed sheet, not a painted icon. In the 1830s the monks of Mount Athos kept workshops of copper engravers who cut a design into a plate and pulled it hundreds of times, cheaply, on paper. Sheets like this were handed to visiting pilgrims as a blessing, and used to draw support to the monasteries. This one, dated 1834, shows Saint George, the soldier-martyr. On Athos the Bulgarian house, the Zograf monastery, is dedicated to George, which is part of why his image travelled home with Bulgarian pilgrims. What you are looking at was made to be given away, and to exist in many copies.