Saint Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland

As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother,
casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
St Matthew 4: 18–20

Andrew was born in Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee during the early first century. Like his younger brother, Simon, he was a fisherman. St Matthew tells us that Jesus asked the two to follow him and become "fishers of men". St John tells a different story, saying that Andrew was originally a disciple of John the Baptist who one day, pointed at Jesus and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God". Andrew and another disciple followed Jesus and stayed with him that day. The next day Andrew went to find his brother Simon, and he said, "We have found the Messiah" and took him to meet Jesus - making him the first Christian Missionary!

Not much more is said about Andrew in the Gospels, other than that he was one of the closer disciples to Jesus. It was he who told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes, which led to the feeding of the 5,000. When Philip wanted to speak to Jesus about Greeks asking to see him, he spoke to Andrew first. Andrew was also, with the others, at the last supper.

According to Christian tradition, Andrew went on to preach the Gospel around the shores of the Black Sea and throughout what is now Greece and Turkey. Andrew was martyred by crucifixion around AD 60-70 in Patras, Greece. He was bound, rather than nailed, to a cross, and was crucified on a cross form known as "crux decussata", an X-shaped cross known as a "Saltire", commonly referred to now as a "St Andrew's Cross". It is said that Andrew asked to be crucified this way, because he was "unworthy to be crucified on the same kind of cross as Jesus".

St Andrew's remains were originally preserved at Patras, but three hundred years after his martyrdom the Roman Emperor Constantine, now a Christian, ordered that the Saint's bones should be moved from Patras to his new capital city of Constantinople, now Istanbul. However, before this order was carried out a monk called St Rule (or St Regulus) had a dream in which an Angel told him to take what bones of St Andrew that he could to 'the ends of the earth' for safe keeping and to build a shrine for them wherever he shipwrecked. St Rule took what bones he could and after an epic journey, he was shipwrecked on the east coast of Scotland on the coat of Fife. He probably thought that he had indeed reached the 'ends of the earth'!

No one knows what happened to the relics of St Andrew, probably destroyed in the Scottish Reformation, but St Andrews became a centre of Medieval pilgrimage and over a millennium later, St Rule's Tower still stands in the ruins of St Andrew's Cathedral, which was once the largest Cathedral in Scotland, now in ruins. During his visit in 1969, Pope Paul VI gave relics of St Andrew to Scotland with the words "St Peter gives you his brother" and they can now be seen in a reliquary in St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh.

One legend about how St Andrew became the Patron Saint of Scotland says that in 832 an army of Scots under King Angus faced certain defeat surrounded by Saxons. As the King led prayers, he saw in a cloud formation a white Saltire, a St Andrew's Cross, set against a blue sky and saw this was a sign from St Andrew promising him victory on the day of the battle. He vowed that if they won, St Andrew would be the Patron Saint of Scotland. Although St Andrew became the Patron Saint of Scotland around the year 1000, it did not become 'official' until the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, which invoked his protection for the Scottish people, but Scotland is not the only country to lay claim to the Apostle. He is also the Patron Saint of Greece, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Amalfi in Italy and of Barbados.

Today Saint Andrew's Day is celebrated in Scotland on 30th November but the tradition was not started in Scotland, but by a group of Scots in the USA who were keen to reconnect with their Scottish roots. The St Andrew’s Society of Charleston in South Carolina, founded in 1729 by a group of wealthy Scottish immigrants, started the tradition. This organisation is the oldest Scottish society of its type in the world and was followed by another society in New York, founded in 1756. From these first organisations, St Andrew’s Societies have spread around the world. In 2006, the Scottish Parliament declared St Andrew’s Day to be a bank holiday.

Saint Andrew Pray for Us

A Prayer to Saint Andrew

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 thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Feast Day of Saint Andrew is 30th November