The patron saint of San Giorgio a Cremano is Saint George the Martyr, celebrated on 23 April in the new church dedicated to him. The origins of the procession in his honour go back to a remote time: the saint's statue was traditionally carried through the town's streets for numerous reasons, from fertilising the land to warding off drought or floods, to defending the territory from mortal dangers.
With the construction of a new church, a new statue of the saint was probably also made, perhaps intended solely for the procession, no longer extant today. Under parish priests Don Donatello Buono and Don Gabriele de Luciano the procession was held regularly, while in the 19th century, under parish priest Don Domenico de Somma, records show a double procession, a sign of the vitality of a devotion that over time saw various statues succeed one another, each carried in procession in place of the one used in previous centuries, with the participation also of the leadership of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception.
