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