About Us
At its core, the OSGH is a community of like-minded people devoted to sharing our experiences and expertise walking the world’s pilgrimage roads.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Order of Saint George’s Horse (OSGH) is to bring together individuals for whom pilgrimage is a spiritual practice, by educating members about the history of pilgrimage, guiding their planning and journeys, and providing opportunities for connection and collaboration.
We understand pilgrimage as a process of transformation, both for the self and for communities of like-minded seekers. Pilgrimage as a practice is found across cultures, religions, and eras, and is usually defined as a journey to a special site for religious or spiritual purposes. Today, several sites across the globe are recognized by UNESCO as world heritage routes, such as the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and the Kumano Kodo (Japan) and many others are protected by national governments as heritage sites. In recent years, more and more people are turning to pilgrimage as a means of understanding self, beliefs, or as a way to connect to nature. Seen as an alternative to tourism, pilgrimage offers a way for individuals to travel in an intentional, ethical, and transformative mode. For others, pilgrimage is a more interior process, akin to self-healing or mysticism.
OSGH programs offer opportunities for those who consider themselves pilgrims already, and for those who wish to travel in an intentional way, to come together and share experiences, planning, and ideas about pilgrimage in the modern world. We provide support for those who are preparing to travel, whether to a different country or to a new way of being their authentic selves. Through workshops, newsletters, meetings, and lectures, OSGH seeks to support pilgrims every step of the way, from planning trips, to sharing itineraries, to reintegrating after their pilgrimage experiences. It is our intent that OSGH serves as a spiritual and educational resource for those seeking community and connection through travel and exploration.
History
The Order of St. George’s Horse (“OSGH”) is a pilgrimage confraternity founded in 2011. The OSGH led its earliest pilgrimages across Serbia to the Dragačevski Sabor, followed by a journey across Iceland’s hidden hot springs and sacred waterfalls. Even more important than its beginnings are its doings. The OSGH is a framework for spiritual adventures, a name for our collective trek into the world’s religious landscapes.
At its core, the OSGH is a community of like-minded people devoted to sharing our experiences and expertise walking the world’s pilgrimage roads. We understand friendship to be at the very core of spirituality; religion is merely the history of humanity’s friendship with the metaphysical world and the beings that inhabit it. The profound love we feel for our confrères has become aware of itself. The Order is the incarnation of this affection.
The OSGH regards pilgrimage as its own mystical religion. Our focus is trained on (1) sharing both scholarly and vernacular understandings of the global practice of pilgrimage; (2) producing lectures, books, zines, podcasts, and lectures on sacred travel; and (3) leading the annual OSGH pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, alongside supporting shorter, regional pilgrimages across the US.
Across these activities, the OSGH emphasizes the significance of reciprocity with other pilgrims and pilgrimage confraternities.
While much of the time we spend on pilgrimage is devoted to silent contemplation, we also emphasize how sacred travel can also be a joyful affair, with much feasting, toasts, and gift-giving. In the spirit of generosity, OSGH pilgrims are obliged to carry a little stash of gifts for the barkeeps, hospitallers, and fellow travelers they meet on the sacred pathways. This is a counterbalance to the spiritual selfishness and obsession with personal growth that characterizes much modern pilgrimage. The OSGH also acts as a network for information sharing, which members use to circulate trip reports, talismanic jewelry, paper shrines, and travelogues.
The Order’s calendar is centered on our annual trek along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela that runs through France, Portugal, and Spain. Each Spring we walk a special segment of the Camino, which customarily takes seven to ten days to walk. The Grandmasters of the Order also host regional peregrinations. Though the OSGH is headquartered in the United States, friends of the Order and OSGH outposts can be found on almost every continent. For a faithful account of the OSGH, see Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots (2021), co-authored by board members J. Christian Greer and Michelle Oing.
Click here to read a piece on the Order’s Mission & History authored by Greer and Oing in 2020.
Board of Directors
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Michelle K. Oing, PhD
Secretary
Michelle K. Oing is a scholar of medieval art, with a special interest in the histories of art, puppetry, and pilgrimage in Western Europe. Since receiving her Ph.D. from Yale University in the History of Art and Architecture, she has held teaching positions at Stanford University and Yale University. She has walked portions of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela multiple times since 2017, passing through France, the Netherlands, and Spain, as well as Japan’s Kumano Kodo pilgrimage; she has also visited multiple medieval Catholic pilgrimage sites across Europe, Japan, and India. As a member of the Board of Directors, her work involves planning group pilgrimages and delivering lectures and authoring books on the history and practice of pilgrimage, both in the past and today. Some of her favorite things to do on pilgrimage include counting cats, sampling local wines, and finding bookstores that carry the work of local historians of pilgrimage and folklore. In addition to her work with the OSGH, she is also an Advisory Board Member for the Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project.
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J. Christian Greer, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
J. Christian Greer is a scholar of Religious Studies, and holds a MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, as well as a MA and PhD (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He has held postdoctoral teaching and research positions at Harvard University, Yale University, and is currently a lecturer at Stanford University. He is also the co-founder, and currently the co-chair of the Drugs and Religion program unit at the American Academy of Religion.
Since 2017, he has undertaken numerous pilgrimages on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Jakobsweg through Northern Holland, and the Kumano Kodo which runs across the Kii peninsula of Japan. He and Dr. Michelle Oing led their first group pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in 2021. He has lectured on the history of pilgrimage at dozens of universities in the US and Canada, and presented his research at prestigious academic conferences across the world. Building on this research, he co-authored the book Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots (with Dr. Michelle Oing), a popular analysis of the pilgrimage folklore associated with the rainforests of Japan’s Kii Peninsula. His follow-up book, VOID MACHINES: The Paper Shrines of J. Christian Greer, collected the pilgrimage art he has created over the last decade.
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Broderick Shoemaker
Chief Financial Officer
Broderick Shoemaker is a professor in the Electronic Design and Multimedia Department at the City College of New York. He received his BFA in Philosophy and Anthropology from Boston University and his MFA from the City College of New York. He is a co-founder of SusanKhalje.com. He brings his experience in digital design and small-business management to the OSGH team and looks forward to embarking on his first pilgrimage in 2025.
Research Associates
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Marieke Hofland
Research Associate
Marieke Hofland has provided invaluable assistance to the OSGH for numerous years, acting as a travel guide, ecological consultant, and translator.
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Jebson Interlandi
Research Associate
Jebson Interlandi has worked with the OSGH since its founding in 2012, and made pilgrimages with its board members across the Netherlands, Ireland, and the US. He also serves as a consultant for the OSGH’s writing projects.