George's Day in Spring, or Saint George's Day (, ; ; ; , or ), is a Slavic religious holiday, the feast of Saint George celebrated on 23 April by the Julian calendar (6 May by the Gregorian calendar). In Croatia and Slovenia, the Roman Catholic version of Saint George's Day, Jurjevo is celebrated on 23 April by the Gregorian calendar. Saint George is one of the most important saints in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. He is the patron military saint in Slavic, Georgian and Circassian, Cossack, Chetnik military tradition. Christian synaxaria hold that Saint George was a martyr who died for his faith. On icons, he is usually depicted as a man riding a horse and killing a dragon. Beyond Orthodox Christian tradition proper, Đurđevdan is also more generically a spring festival in the Balkans. Balkan tradition Saint George's Day, known as Đurđevdan () in Serbian, is a feast day celebrated on 6 May (O.S. 23 April) in the Eastern Orthodox Church. As such, it is celebrated on that date by the Serb community in former Yugoslavia and in the Serb diaspora. It is also one of the many family slavas. The day is celebrated and known as Gergyovden in Bulgaria and Gjurgovdjen in Macedonia. Đurđevdan is also a major holiday for the Romani communities in former Yugoslavia, whether Orthodox or Muslim. The various spellings used by the Romani (Ederlezi, Herdeljez, Erdelezi) for it are variants of the Turkish Hıdırellez. It is also celebrated by the Slavic Muslim community of Gorani in Kosovo, and by members of the uncanonical Montenegrin Orthodox Church. The holiday's rituals and festivities are related to the legend of St. George who is pictured as a brave young knight on a white horse slaying a dragon and saving a young maiden. The holiday celebrates the return of springtime and is considered an important one. Celebrations are closely associated with pagan rituals and festivities associated with the awakening of nature and arrival of spring, dominant in the Balkans but also present in Europe. These rituals primarily consisted of sheep grazing, ritual slaughtering of a lamb, preparation of various dishes, ritual bath in the river or springs, setting of live fires, decorating with greenery and flowers and conducting of love spells. About a third of the population in Serbia have St. George as a patron saint, meaning that St. George's Day or Đurđevdan is celebrated as a