Post-Christian Perun With the arrival of Christianity, various churches had a difficult time trying to overcome the worship of the old supreme deities of the Slavs. In the East, the Eastern Orthodox Church gradually managed to pass much of Perun's characteristics on to a new Christian saint, Elias the Thunderer, based upon the Old Testament prophet Elijah, whom the Scriptures state rode a flaming chariot through heaven; this seemed a good enough approximation of the old thunder god with his fiery bolts. Serbians refer to St. Elias as either Gromovnik or Gromovit, which means the thunderer, and pray to him for good harvests. In the west, the Roman Catholic Church offered St. Michael the Archangel, who, as a commander of heavenly armies and vanquisher of the Devil, was also a fitting replacement for Perun. It is also possible that on a local level Perun was replaced with St. Vitus, where this saint did not, due to similarities in names, replace another important Slavic god, Svantevit; however, it is also possible that already in pagan times, the worship of Perun was challenged by a growing cult of Svantevit. Perun was also associated with St. George, since both Perun and St.George slay the dragon. St. George is the patron of wild and domestic animals. On some levels of folklore and popular Christianity, some of Perun's characteristics were passed on to the Christian God himself.