Saint Andrew, Apostle

Andrew was a fisherman from Bethsaida, the brother of Simon Peter. The Gospel of John tells that he was first a disciple of John the Baptist and, after following Jesus, went to find his brother with the words “We have found the Messiah”; for this the Greek Church calls him the First-Called. In John's Gospel it is also Andrew who brings to Jesus the boy with five loaves and two fish. Tradition says he preached around the Black Sea and in Greece, and that he was crucified at Patras in Achaia, about the year 60; the X-shaped cross linked with him appears in later art. Constantinople claimed him as founder of its church; his relics were taken to Amalfi in 1208. He is the patron of Scotland.