ADVENT · 30 NOVEMBER
Saint Andrew the Apostle
The First-Called · Apostle & Martyr · He Who Brought His Brother · Patron of Scotland, Russia & Greece
Andrew — AN-droo · Bethsaida — beth-SAY-dah · Patras — PAH-tras · Scythia — SITH-ee-ah · Achaia — ah-KAY-ah · Aegeates — ee-JEE-ah-teez · Protoclete — PROH-toh-kleet
Almighty God, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay; Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy Word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Andrew (AN-droo) was the first-called — the Protoclete (PROH-toh-kleet) as the Eastern Church names him — a fisherman of Bethsaida (beth-SAY-dah) who had been a disciple of John the Baptist before he became a disciple of Jesus. It was John the Baptist who pointed Andrew to the Lamb of God, and Andrew who went immediately to find his brother Simon Peter and said We have found the Messiah and brought him to Jesus. The whole of Peter’s apostolate — the rock on which the Church is built, the preaching of Pentecost, the mission to Cornelius, the letters that bear his name, the martyrdom in Rome — flows from Andrew’s act of bringing his brother. Andrew is the Apostle of introduction, the one who connects, who cannot keep the good news to himself. He brought Peter to Jesus. At the feeding of the five thousand he brought the boy with five loaves. When the Greeks came to Philip wanting to see Jesus, Philip told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together brought them to the Lord. Andrew is always bringing someone.
His subsequent mission is one of the most geographically extensive in the apostolic tradition. The Eastern Church sends him along the shores of the Black Sea through Pontus, Bithynia, Thrace, and Scythia (SITH-ee-ah) — the vast territory north of the Black Sea that includes the lands of modern Russia and Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church traces its apostolic foundation to Andrew’s mission on the Dnieper and Volga rivers, and the tradition is old enough for Eusebius to know it. He is said to have founded the see of Byzantium, which became Constantinople — the Eastern capital of the Christian world — making him in the Eastern tradition the Apostle whose mission prepared the ground for the city that would become the centre of Orthodox Christianity for a thousand years. He eventually came to Patras (PAH-tras) in Achaia (ah-KAY-ah) in Greece, where he was crucified on an X-shaped cross — the saltire that bears his name — by the proconsul Aegeates (ee-JEE-ah-teez). He is said to have embraced the cross when he saw it, greeting it as the instrument of his completion.
Andrew’s feast on 30 November stands at the threshold of Advent — the first feast of the liturgical year in many traditions, the day before the season of preparation begins. This placement is deeply appropriate for the Protoclete, the first-called, the one who stands at every threshold pointing toward the one who stands behind him. Advent is the season of the Forerunner and the Forerunner’s message: prepare ye the way of the Lord. Andrew is the apostolic counterpart to John the Baptist — both of them standing at the entrance, pointing inward, saying to whoever will hear we have found him, come and see. He was himself a disciple of the Baptist before he became an Apostle of the Christ, and his vocation is the same as the Baptist’s: to be the voice that says Come and see, to be the hand that opens the door, to be the one who connects the seeker with the sought.
The patron of Scotland, Russia, and Greece — three nations as different from one another as it is possible to be — Andrew’s patronage speaks to the universality of the apostolic mission: the one commission given on the mountain in Galilee reaches to Edinburgh and Moscow and Athens alike, and the tradition that places Andrew at the origin of all three is the tradition’s testimony that the Great Commission has no geographical limits. What Andrew accomplished in Scythia, what communities he planted along the Black Sea coast, what became of the people he baptised on the shores of the Dnieper — only God knows the full account. But the faith he carried has been in Russia and Greece for two thousand years, and it is there still, and the man who brought his brother to Jesus stands in the cloud of witnesses as the example of the simplest and most transformative act any Christian can perform: saying to the person nearest to you we have found him and bringing them to see.
O Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Andrew first among the Twelve and didst give him grace to bring his brother to the Lord; Grant that we may stand as he stood at every threshold of encounter, pointing toward the one who stands behind us, bringing to him all who will come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
Amen.