Saint andrew of crete biography

Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, was born in the city of Damascus into a pious Christian family. Up until seven years of age the boy was mute and did not talk. However, after communing the Holy Mysteries of Christ he found the gift of speech and began to speak. And from that time the lad began earnestly to study Holy Scripture and the discipline of theology.

At fourteen years of age he went off to Jerusalem and there he accepted monastic tonsure at the monastery of Saint Savva the Sanctified. Saint Andrew led a strict and chaste life, he was meek and abstinent, such that all were amazed at his virtue and reasoning of mind. As a man of talent and known for his virtuous life, over the passage of time he came to be numbered among the Jerusalem clergy and was appointed a secretary for the Patriarchate -- a writing clerk. In the year 680 the locum tenens of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, Theodore, included archdeacon Andrew among the representatives of the Holy City sent to the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and here the saint contended against heretical teachings, relying upon his profound knowledge of Orthodox doctrine. Shortly after the Council he was summoned back to Constantinople from Jerusalem and he was appointed archdeacon at the church of Hagia Sophia, the Wisdom of God. During the reign of the emperor Justinian II (685-695) Saint Andrew was ordained bishop of the city of Gortineia on the island of Crete. In his new position he shone forth as a true luminary of the Church, a great hierarch -- a theologian, teacher and hymnographer.

Saint Andrew composed many inspired writings, including the Great Canon of Repentance which is sung on Monday through Thursday of the first week of Lent, after the usual beginning of Compline, and following Psalm 69/70. In current Greek practice the Great Canon begins after the Doxology. The Great Canon of Repentance includes 250 troparia within its 9 Odes. Before each Troparion of the Canon, we make the

For the martyr of 766 of the same name, see Andrew of Crete (martyr).

Andrew of Crete (Greek: Ἀνδρέας Κρήτης, c. 650 – July 4, 712 or 726 or 740), also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was an 8th-century bishop, theologian, homilist, and hymnographer. He is venerated as a saint in both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.

Life

Born in Damascus c. 650, to Christian parents, Andrew was mute until the age of seven. According to his hagiographers, he was miraculously cured after receiving Holy Communion. He began his ecclesiastical career at fourteen in the Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, near Jerusalem, where he quickly gained the notice of his superiors. Theodore, the locum tenens of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (745–770) made him his Archdeacon, and sent him to the imperial capital of Constantinople as his official representative at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681), which had been called by Emperor Constantine IV to counter the heresy of Monothelitism.

Shortly after the Council, he was summoned back to Constantinople from Jerusalem and appointed Archdeacon at the "Great Church" of Hagia Sophia. Eventually, Andrew was appointed to the metropolitansee of Gortyna, in Crete. Although he had been an opponent of Monothelitism, he nevertheless attended the conciliabulum of 712, in which the decrees of the Ecumenical Council were abolished. In the following year, he repented and returned to orthodoxy and thereafter occupied himself with preaching, composing hymns, etc. As a preacher, his discourses are known for their dignified and harmonious phraseology, for which he is considered to be one of the foremost ecclesiastical orators of the Byzantine Era.

Church historians have no consensus as to the date of his death. What is known is that he died on the island of Mytilene, while returning to Crete from Constantinople, where he had been on church business. His relics were later translated to Constant

Andrew of Crete was a fervent iconophile, he was executed in the Forum Bovis of Constantinople at the orders of Emperor Constantine V in 766 or 767, during the Byzantine Iconoclasm. He is regarded as a martyr in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. His feast day is October 17. The monastery of St Andrew in Krisei in Constantinople, currently the Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque in Istanbul, was dedicated to him. It should be noticed that according to modern sources, the figure of Andrew of Crete, like those of many iconophile Saints lived under the iconoclastic period, is unverified.

References

Sources

• Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-14-051312-4.
• Janin, Raymond (1964). Constantinople Byzantine (2 ed.). Paris: Institut français d'etudes byzantines.

• Müller-Wiener, Wolfgang (1977). Bildlexikon Zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul Bis Zum Beginn D. 17 Jh (in German). Tübingen: Wasmuth. ISBN .
• Brubaker, Leslie; Haldon, John (2011). Byzantium in the Iconoclast era (ca 680-850). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN .

External links

Celebrated by Eastern Catholics of the Byzantine tradition on July 4, Saint Andrew of Crete was a seventh-and eighth-century monk, bishop, and hymn-writer.

Among Eastern Christians he is best known as the author of the “Great Canon,” a lengthy prayer service traditionally offered as a penitential practice during Lent. He is also venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, where he is better known for his writings on the Blessed Virgin Mary.

He should not be confused with a different “Saint Andrew of Crete,” celebrated on Oct. 17, who suffered martyrdom while defending the veneration of icons during the eighth century.

The author of the “Great Canon” was born in the Syrian city of Damascus in the mid-seventh century. He is said to have remained mute for the first seven years of his life, gaining the power of speech at age seven after the reception of Holy Communion.

Devoted to God from that time on, Andrew went to Jerusalem and entered the Monastery of Saint Sava when he was 15 years old. He went on to serve as a cleric of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, and was sent as a representative to the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (680-681).

The council took up the monothelite controversy, a disagreement as to whether Christ had both a divine and a human will (as the Church teaches), or only a divine will. Though the question may seem abstract to modern ears, it was an important point, bearing on the reality of Jesus' full humanity.

In 685 Andrew returned to Constantinople, where he did charitable work for orphans and the poor, and served as a deacon in the great Hagia Sophia church. Around the year 700 he became archbishop of the city of Gortyna, on the island of Crete.

In 712, during a resurgence of the monothelite heresy, Andrew was forced to attend an illegitimate gathering in which the Byzantine emperor Philippicus Bardanes tried to reverse the decisions of the Sixth Council. Andrew's coerced attendance