Saint Andrew the Apostle: Life, Cross, Feast and Prayer

Saint Andrew the Apostle was a fisherman of Galilee, the brother of St Peter, and the first of the Twelve to follow Jesus, which is why the Greeks call him the Protoclete, the "First-called." He preached the Gospel after Pentecost in Scythia and Greece and was crucified at Patras in Achaia, greeting his cross with a hymn of love the Church still sings in his Office. His feast, St Andrew's Day, is kept on 30 November, the day by which Advent is reckoned; here is his life from the Gospels and the Breviary, his martyrdom, his cross, his patronage and his prayers.

Who was Saint Andrew?

Andrew was a native of Bethsaida, a town on the shore of the lake of Genesareth, the son of Jona and the brother of Simon Peter; the Scriptures do not say which of the two was the elder. The brothers were fishermen and kept a house at Capharnaum, where Our Lord lodged when He preached in that city.

Andrew had first been a disciple of St John the Baptist, and was with him beside the Jordan on the day the Forerunner pointed to Jesus passing by. St John the Evangelist, who was very likely the other disciple present, tells it with the precision of an eyewitness:

"The next day again John stood and two of his disciples. And beholding Jesus walking, he saith: Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak: and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turning and seeing them following him, saith to them: What seek you? Who said to him: Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwellest thou? He saith to them: Come and see. They came and saw where he abode: and they stayed with him that day. Now it was about the tenth hour. And Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who had heard of John and followed him. He findeth first his brother Simon and saith to him: We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." (John i. 35-42)

Andrew's first act as a disciple was to bring another to Christ, and that other was the future Prince of the Apostles, St Peter.

Saint Andrew in the Gospels

For a time the brothers followed Jesus while still working at their trade. Then, by the Sea of Galilee, came the definitive call: "Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea (for they were fishers). And he saith to them: Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men. And they immediately leaving their nets, followed him." (Matthew iv. 18-20). This Gospel is read at his Mass.

Andrew is always named among the first four in the lists of the Apostles. Each time St John mentions him, he is bringing someone to Jesus. At the feeding of the five thousand it is Andrew who finds the boy "that hath five barley loaves and two fishes" (John vi. 8-9); and when certain Gentiles who had come up for the feast said to Philip, "Sir, we would see Jesus," it was Philip and Andrew together who told Our Lord (John xii. 20-22). With Peter, James and John, he questioned Jesus on the Mount of Olives about the end of the world (Mark xiii. 3).

The mission of Saint Andrew after Pentecost

The Roman Breviary, following the ancient writers, records that after the Resurrection Andrew was allotted Scythia, the lands north of the Black Sea, as the province of his preaching, and that he then went through Epirus and Thrace, turning great multitudes to Christ, before coming to Patras in Achaia, in Greece. Eusebius, St Gregory Nazianzen and St Jerome agree on the general direction of his apostolate, though not on the details. Later traditions made him the founder of the Church of Byzantium and the first preacher of the Gospel as far as Kiev, which is why he is the patron of Constantinople and of Russia; Butler considers both traditions of little worth.

How did Saint Andrew die?

At Patras the proconsul Aegeas resisted the preaching of the Gospel. Andrew rebuked him freely. When Aegeas mocked him that the Christ he preached had been crucified by the Jews, and ordered him to sacrifice to the gods, Andrew answered with words that the Breviary keeps for us: "I offer up daily to God, the Almighty, the One and the True, not the flesh of bulls nor the blood of goats, but a Lamb without spot; and when all they that believe have eaten of the Flesh thereof, the Lamb that was slain abideth whole and liveth." He was thrown into prison; the people would have freed him, but he calmed them and begged them not to rob him of the crown he longed for.

Brought again before the tribunal, he extolled the mystery of the Cross, and Aegeas condemned him to be crucified in imitation of Christ. He was bound, not nailed, to the cross, so that his agony should last longer, and hung there alive for two days, never ceasing to preach the faith to the crowd, until he passed to Him whose death he had so desired to share. The account was written, the Breviary says, by the priests and deacons of Achaia, who had seen and heard it all. Tradition places his death about the year 60. Our article how did the Apostles die sets his martyrdom beside those of the other eleven.

O bona Crux: St Andrew's greeting to his cross

As soon as he came in sight of the cross, the Breviary relates, Andrew cried out from afar the words the Church sings in his Office:

O bona Crux, quae decorem ex membris Domini suscepisti, diu desiderata, sollicite amata, sine intermissione quaesita, et aliquando cupienti animo praeparata: accipe me ab hominibus, et redde me magistro meo; ut per te me recipiat, qui per te me redemit.

O precious Cross, which the members of my Lord have made so goodly, how long have I desired thee! how warmly have I loved thee! how constantly have I sought thee! And now that thou art come to me, how is my soul drawn to thee! Welcome me from among men, and join me again to my Master, that as by thee He redeemed me, so by thee also He may take me unto Himself.

No text in the liturgy expresses better the Christian love of the Cross. Many souls take it as a prayer of acceptance in suffering.

The St Andrew's cross

What is a Saint Andrew's cross?

A Saint Andrew's cross is a cross in the shape of the letter X, called in heraldry a saltire. Christian art has long shown St Andrew bound to such a cross, and the X-shaped cross has become his emblem.

Butler notes honestly that the earliest accounts of his passion say only that he was bound to a cross, and that the idea of the X shape does not appear before the fourteenth century. It is a venerable symbol rather than a certain historical detail. It is fitting all the same: X is the first letter of Christ's name in Greek.

Why is St Andrew the patron saint of Scotland?

The legend preserved in the Aberdeen Breviary tells that St Rule (Regulus), a monk of Patras who had charge of the Apostle's relics in the fourth century, was warned by an angel to carry part of them "towards the ends of the earth," and that he stopped where the town of Saint Andrews now stands, built a church there, and became its first bishop. Butler holds the legend to be of little worth, but whatever its origin, the relics and the devotion came, and St Andrew has been the patron of Scotland for more than a thousand years. The white saltire on a blue field, the flag of Scotland, is his cross.

What is St Andrew the patron saint of?

St Andrew is the patron saint of:

• Scotland, whose flag bears his cross;
• Russia, Greece, and the Church of Constantinople;
• fishermen and fishmongers, for his trade on the Sea of Galilee;
• those who bring others to Christ, after his example with his own brother;
• souls who must learn to love the Cross.

The relics of Saint Andrew

The Breviary records that under the Emperor Constantine (Butler says under his son Constantius II) the Apostle's bones were translated from Patras to the church of the Apostles at Constantinople. After the sack of that city by the Crusaders in 1204 they were carried to Italy and laid in the cathedral of Amalfi, where they rest in the crypt to this day. His head was brought to Rome under Pope Pius II in 1462 and kept in St Peter's Basilica; it was given back to the Church of Patras in 1964.

The prayers of the feast of Saint Andrew

St Andrew is named in the Canon of the Mass with the other Apostles, and he is also named after the Pater noster, in the prayer Libera nos, with Our Lady, St Peter and St Paul, as you can read in our Order of the Tridentine Mass. The collect of his feast in the Missal of 1962:

Collect of the feast, 30 November

Maiestatem tuam, Domine, suppliciter exoramus: ut, sicut Ecclesiae tuae beatus Andreas Apostolus exstitit praedicator et rector; ita apud te sit pro nobis perpetuus intercessor. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

We humbly beseech Thy Majesty, O Lord: that, as blessed Andrew the Apostle was a preacher and ruler of Thy Church, so he may be a perpetual intercessor for us before Thee. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

He is also invoked by name among the Apostles in the Litany of the Saints: Sancte Andrea, ora pro nobis, "Saint Andrew, pray for us."

St Andrew's Day and Advent

St Andrew's Day falls on 30 November. In the traditional Roman calendar of 1962 it is a feast of the second class, with the Mass Mihi autem nimis, "But to me Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable." His feast is bound up with the beginning of the Church's year: the first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday nearest to St Andrew's Day, so that it always falls between 27 November and 3 December, and in the older Missals the Proper of the Saints opens with his vigil and feast.

Two devotions are attached to his day. The first is the novena properly so called, nine days of prayer ending on his feast, with a meditation for each day on his life: see our novena to St Andrew the Apostle, begun on 22 November. The second, far more widely known, is the St Andrew Christmas novena, the prayer "Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary," said fifteen times a day from his feast until Christmas; it is called after him only because it begins on his day.

Its full text, history and the way to pray it are in our article on the St Andrew Christmas novena. Our guide to the Catholic saints sets St Andrew the Apostle in the company of the other saints of the traditional calendar, month by month.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Saint Andrew?

One of the Twelve Apostles, a fisherman of Bethsaida in Galilee, the brother of St Peter, and first a disciple of St John the Baptist. He was the first to follow Jesus, brought his brother Peter to Him, preached in Scythia and Greece, and was crucified at Patras.

Why was Saint Andrew crucified?

Because he refused to sacrifice to the gods and would not stop preaching Christ at Patras. The proconsul Aegeas condemned him to the cross "in imitation of Christ," whom Andrew had proclaimed crucified for the salvation of men.

When did Saint Andrew die?

Tradition places his martyrdom about the year 60, on 30 November, the day the Latin and Greek calendars have kept his feast at all periods.

When was Saint Andrew born?

The Gospels do not give the year. He was born at Bethsaida, in Galilee, in the early years of the first century, a contemporary of Our Lord.

Where did Saint Andrew live?

At Bethsaida and then at Capharnaum, on the Sea of Galilee, with his brother Peter; after Pentecost he travelled as a missionary through Scythia, Thrace and Epirus, and ended his life at Patras in Greece.

Is St Andrew the same as St Andrew Avellino?

No. St Andrew Avellino was a Theatine priest of the sixteenth century, patron against sudden death, whose feast is 10 November; see our novena to St Andrew Avellino. St Andrew the Apostle is the brother of St Peter.

When is the feast of Saint Andrew?

On 30 November, a feast of the second class in the 1962 calendar.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal and the Breviary of 1962, the novenas, and the St Andrew Christmas prayer with a daily reminder from 30 November. Join early access here.

Sources. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version: John i. 35-42, vi. 8-9, xii. 20-22; Matthew iv. 18-20; Mark xiii. 3. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 30 November (St Andrew, Apostle). Roman Breviary, 30 November, Lessons of the second nocturn. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 30 November; Canon of the Mass and Libera nos. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book iii.