Saint Andrew

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Saint Andrew
Apostol-Andrey-Pervozvannyj.jpg

Icon of the Apostle Andrew
Apostle
Venerated in All Christianity
Major shrine Church of St. Andreas at Patras
Feast November 30
Attributes Old man with long (in the East often untidy) white hair and beard, holding the Gospel in right hand, sometimes leaning on a saltire cross
Patronage Scotland, Russia, Sicily, Greece, Romania, Amalfi and Luqa - Malta and Prussia, Army Rangers, mariners, fishermen, fishmongers, rope-makers, singers, performers,

Saint Andrew (add dates) (Greek: Ανδρέας, Andreas, "manly, brave"), called in the Orthodox tradition Protocletos, or the First-called, was a Christian Apostle and the younger brother of Saint Peter. He was renowned for bringing Christianity to Romania, Ukraine, and Russia, and is said to have been crucified on a Saltaire cross in Patras in Greece. Saint Andrew is esteemed as an example humilty for the fact that he refused to be crucified on the same shaped cross as Christ because he was not worthy (see below).

Many countries venerate Saint Anthony as their patron Saint including Scotland, Russia, and Romania.[1] The feast of Saint Andrew is observed on November 30 in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland.

Biography

In Christian tradition, Andrew was born at Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee (John 1:44). Later, he lived at Capernaum (Mark 1:29). Since Andrew or Andreas is a Greek name, it is likely that he had another Hebrew or Aramaic name but none is recorded for him in the Bible.

In the gospels, he is described as being one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus (Mark 13:3; John 6:8, 12:22); in Acts there is only a bare mention of him (1:13). Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that He will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: αλιείς ανθρώπων, halieis anthropon). [2]

Eusebius quotes Origen as saying Andrew preached in Asia Minor and in Scythia, along the Black Sea as far as the Volga and Kyiv. Hence he became a patron saint of Romania and Russia. According to tradition, he founded the Sea of Byzantium in 38 C.E., installing Stachys as bishop (the only bishopric in that neighbourhood before that time had been established at Heraclea). This Sea would later develop into the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and Andrew is its Patron Saint.

He is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at Patras in Greece, on a cross of the form called Crux decussata (X-shaped cross) and commonly known as "St. Andrew's cross", at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross on which Christ was crucified. According to tradition his relics were removed from Patras to Constantinople, and thence to St. Andrews (see below). Local legends say that the relics were sold to the Romans by the local priests in exchange for the Romans constructing a water reservoir for the city. The head of the Saint Andrew, considered as one of the treasures of St. Peter's Basilica, was given by the Byzantine despot Thomas Palaeologus to Pope Pius II in 1461. In recent years, the relics were kept in the Vatican City, but were sent back to Patras by decision of the Pope Paul VI in 1964. The relics, which consist of the small finger and part of the top of the cranium of Saint Andrew, have since that time been kept in the Church of St. Andrew at Patras in a special tomb, and are reverenced in a special ceremony every November 30.

St. Andrew Basilica at Patras, Greece, where the saint's relics are kept, is said to be erected over the place of his martyrdom

St. Jerome (ca. 342 –419) wrote that the relics of St Andrew were taken from Patras to Constantinople by order of the Roman emperor Constantius II in 357. In 1208, the relics were taken to Amalfi, Italy, by Pietro, cardinal of Capua, a native of Amalfi. In the 15th century, the skull of St Andrew was brought to Rome, where it became enshrined in one of the four central piers of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. In September 1964, as a gesture of good will toward the Greek Orthodox Church, Pope Paul VI returned a finger and part of the head to the church in Patras. The Amalfi cathedral, dedicated to St. Andrew (as is the town itself), contains a tomb in its crypt that it maintains still contains the rest of the relics of the apostle.

The apocryphal Acts of Andrew, as well as a Gospel of St. Andrew, appear among rejected books in the Decretum Gelasianum connected with the name of Pope Gelasius I. The Acts of Andrew was edited and published by Constantin von Tischendorf in the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821), putting it for the first time into the hands of a critical professional readership.

His Role as an Apostle

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Relics

The purported relics of Andrew are kept at St. Andrew Basilica, Patras, Greece; Sant'Andrea Dome, Amalfi, Italy; St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland;[3] and St. Andrew and St. Albert Church, Warsaw, Poland.

Saint Andrew in Ukraine

Early Christian History in Ukraine holds that the apostle Saint Andrew is said to have preached on the southern borders of Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kiev, where he erected a cross on the site where the St. Andrew's Church of Kiev currently stands, and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city.

Romanian tradition

Romanians believe that Saint Andrew (named Sfântul Apostol Andrei) was the first who preached Christianity in Scythia Minor, modern Dobrogea, to the native people of the Dacians (ancestors of the Romanians). This is the official standpoint of the Romanian Orthodox Church.[4] Hippolyte of Antioch (died ~ 250 C.E.) in his On apostles,[4] Origen in the third book of his Commentaries on the Genesis (254 C.E.), Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History (340 C.E.), and other different sources, like the Usaard's Martyrdom written between 845-865,[5] Jacobus de Voragine in Golden Legend (~1260),[6] mention that Saint Andrew preached in Scythia Minor. There are toponyms and numerous very old traditions (like carols) related to Saint Andrew, many of them having probably a pre-Christian substratum. There exists a cave where he supposedly preached.

Scottish legends

About the middle of the tenth century, Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought under supernatural guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern town of St. Andrews stands (Pictish, Muckross; Gaelic, Cill Rìmhinn).

The Saltire (or "St. Andrew's Cross") is the national flag of Scotland

The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the other in the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) — the name is preserved by the tower of St. Rule — was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his date, however, is c. 573–600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a See, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St. Andrews. The connection made with Regulus is, therefore, due in all probability to the desire to date the foundation of the church at St. Andrews as early as possible.

Another legend says that in the late eighth century, during a joint battle with the English, King Ungus (either the Óengus mac Fergusa mentioned previously or Óengus II of the Picts (820–834)) saw a cloud shaped like a saltire, and declared Andrew was watching over them, and if they won by his grace, then he would be their patron saint. However, there is evidence Andrew was venerated in Scotland even before this time.

Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's older brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Saint Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle".[7]

Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Saint Andrew.

Conclusions

Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, Russia, Romania, Amalfi, and Luqa - Malta. He was also the patron saint of Prussia. The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and the arms and Flag of Nova Scotia) feature a saltire in commemoration of the shape of St Andrew's cross. The saltire is also the Flag of Tenerife and the naval jack of Russia. The Confederate flag also features a saltire commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device.

Notes

  1. He was also the patron saint of Prussia.
  2. Metzger & Coogan (1993) Oxford Companion to the Bible, p27.
  3. http://www.stmaryscathedral.co.uk/standrew.html
  4. 4.0 4.1 See Romanian Patriarchy web site www.patriarhia.ro/istoric.php (in Romanian).
  5. Cf. Nicolae Dură, Christianism in Pontic Dacia in Revue Roumain d'Histoire, XLII, no 1-4, pp. 5-17, Publishing House of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, 2003.
  6. Cf. Rebeka Ceravolo, An Iconographic analysis of the retable of saints Andrew and Antonin of Pamier, University of Toledo, Ohio, 2003, p. 20 (pdf) [1].
  7. The Declaration of Arbroath Retrieved May 16, 2007.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Lamont, Stewart. The Life of St Andrew: Apostle, Saint and Enigma. Hodder & Stoughton General Division, 1997. ISBN 978-0340678572
  • Metzeger, Bruce M. and Michael D. Coogan (eds.). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-504645-5
  • McOwan, Rennie. Saint Andrew for Beginners. Saint Andrew Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0715207253

External links

Preceded by:
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
before 38
Succeeded by:
Stachys the Apostle

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