30 November Saint Andrew the Apostle
His name is Greek and means ’ manhood , valour ’. He was the brother of Peter and shared a house with him in Capernaum . He was a follower of John the Baptist and , recognising Jesus as the Messiah , he took Peter to him . Eusebius in his Church History said that Andrew preached in ‘ Scythia ’ ( Black Sea region ) and in the Ukraine , he travelled to Novgorod and founded the See of Constantinople ( Byzantium ) in AD 38 .
He preached in Thrace , the “ Acts of Andrew ”, an apocryphal script , said he was martyred in Patras in Achaea ( Greece ), bound to a cross called the ‘ Saltire ’, because he said he was not worthy to die on the same kind of cross as Jesus did .
His relics were taken to Constantinople , and later to Amalfi in Italy .
The cross was taken from Greece during the Crusades to Marseilles , only in 1980 to be returned to Patras . About the middle of the 10 th c . St Andrew became the Patron Saint of Scotland . Legend states , that his relics were taken by divine guidance to St Andrews , an old manuscript says that St Rule took them to the Picts , but he lived 573-600 and the Pictish King Oengus associated with the relics lived much later . In 832 Oengus fought a battle in East Lothian against the Angles and took the relics to the battle field , calling on St Andrew for help
Legend has it that clouds formed a Saltire and the battle was won . Oengus gratefully named St Andrew as Patron Saint to the Picts .
The relics – or were it those of St Columba ? - were also taken by Robert Bruce to Bannockburn , St Andrew is battle hardened .
May he rest in peace .
StOM Page 11