Icon celebrates 40-year spiritual journey
A striking yet familiar figure can be seen this Labor Day weekend at the 76th annual Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Perpetual Help at Mount St. Macrina, located along Route 40 just west of Uniontown. George Walter, better known to the public as Pilgrim George, is in Fayette County once more to end his annual season of walking by participating in the pilgrimage hosted each September by the Sisters of St. Basil. In fact, Walter is observing his 40th anniversary of walking, making trips each spring and summer as part of a spiritual journey that has led him around the world.
“I walk for Jesus,” said Walter, a 69-year-old native of Glenshaw near Pittsburgh.
The quiet man is instantly recognizable for his long, white beard, denim robe and a staff that is topped with a crucifix. Walter is dressed this way as a sign of poverty and repentance.
“When people see me walking,” he explained, “they know it’s not for health or a sport, but for Jesus.”
Walter, who had once been in seminary before taking up his life as a pilgrim, talked as he took a break from his journey on a bench outside the Uniontown Public Library Friday morning on his way to Mount St. Macrina where the pilgrimage was to begin Friday night. He had been praying the rosary while enjoying a quiet moment.
A Roman Catholic who appreciates the Byzantine rite, Walter began walking when he traveled to Spain in 1970 to make a pilgrimage to a shrine dedicated to St. James, the patron saint of pilgrims, at Santiago de Compostello. Walter noted that his birthday, July 25, is also the feast day for St. James.
“In the Middle Ages, it was the third most important pilgrimage behind Rome and Jerusalem,” he noted of Santiago de Compostello. “Pilgrims have been traveling there since the 700s and they still do.”
Walter arrived in Spain on a freighter that brought him to Barcelona on the east coast and he wanted to be on the west coast. So he walked to the shrine. And then he kept walking.
Walter traveled to Israel because he said, “I wanted to know Jesus in a deeper way.”
And he continued to walk.
His overseas treks have taken Walter through Mexico, Russia, Kazikhstan, China, Pakistan, India, continental Europe, the British Isles, Scandinavia, The Balkans, Turkey and back to Israel. He traveled through Israel in 2000 to observe the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus.
His journeys throughout the United States have included walks to California and Alaska.
Walter travels an average 1,500 miles a year, generally from May until early September.
He used to walk 15 to 20 miles a day. But after he turned 65, he slowed down to six or seven miles a day and rides the rest of the way. He depends on the kindness and generosity of strangers, who provide him with rides as well as food and water.
“I have little needs. I sleep in a tent in the woods,” Walter said, nodding to the fold-up tent he carries with him. “If I need a ticket to cross the ocean, someone gives it to me. This summer, I walked from Houston to Santa Fe but a businessman bought me a round-trip ticket from Pittsburgh to Houston, and then I walked and rode to Santa Fe.”
When he’s in the United States, Walter likes to end his season of walking by participating in the four-day pilgrimage at Mount St. Macrina before spending his winters at a Byzantine monastery in Butler.
“I enjoy being with other people who have come to spend a weekend in prayer and fellowship,” he said. “It’s like a taste of heaven because all you do is pray and listen to hymns. You put everything else aside.”