St. Andrew the Apostle

St. Andrew the Apostle was a fisherman of Bethsaida in Galilee and the brother of Simon Peter. A disciple of John the Baptist, he was, according to the Gospel of John, the first to follow Jesus after John pointed him out as the Lamb of God, and he at once brought his brother Peter to the Lord — for which he is honored as the "First-Called" (Protokletos). He appears in the Gospels bringing the boy with the loaves and fishes to Jesus, and among those who ask about the last things.

After Pentecost, tradition holds that Andrew preached the Gospel widely — in Asia Minor, along the Black Sea, and in Greece — and that he was crucified at Patras in Achaia, bound rather than nailed to a cross so as to prolong his agony, on a cross traditionally said to be X-shaped, since known as the "Saint Andrew's cross." Revered as the founder of the see of Byzantium, he is the patron of Scotland, Greece, and Russia, and his feast on 30 November opens the Church's cycle of saints and marks the threshold of Advent.