Holy Apostle Andrew the First-called (I)

Saint Andrew, the brother of the Apostle Peter, was the first to be called by the Lord Jesus Christ, and so he was named the First-called. From his childhood Saint Andrew loved the Lord, and when the voice of Saint John the Baptist rang out in Israel like thunder, the blessed apostle became his closest disciple. When the Saviour appeared, Saint John said to Andrew and John the Theologian: “Behold the Lamb of God!” At these words both of them followed Jesus. Then Andrew went to his brother Peter, told him the good news that he had found the Messiah, and brought him too to Jesus and made him His disciple. Having become disciples of Christ, the brothers still continued their usual work and earned their living by fishing. Once the Saviour, walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, called them: “Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” After this they accompanied the Son of God inseparably and became witnesses of His miracles, His death and His Resurrection from the dead.

After the Saviour’s Ascension, “when the apostles cast lots” for their preaching, the conversion of Iberia fell by lot to the Theotokos; but, since the time of her repose was drawing near, the Son of God commanded her to remain in Jerusalem, and to send Andrew the First-called to Georgia with her icon not made by hands. The Most Holy Virgin called the saint and told him God’s will; then she asked for a board, “washed her face and laid it upon her face”. On the board the Theotokos was imprinted with the Child Jesus. The Queen of heaven gave this holy thing to Andrew and blessed him, who had undertaken a great labour. Saint Andrew passed through Greece and Asia Minor, and then made his way to the Black Sea coast, and “entered the land of Kartli that is called Didachara”.

In the village of Didachara the ruins of a church survive to this day which, according to tradition, was built by Saint Andrew the First-called himself.

Many trials befell the blessed one from the unbelievers, but through the intercession of God and of the precious icon he bore everything with thanksgiving, “until he had converted them all and brought them to the faith”. In the place where the apostle set down the icon of the Theotokos, a “very beautiful and great” spring welled up. This miracle enlightened the minds of many pagans, and they followed the saving teaching of Christ. The apostle appointed priests and deacons for the newly converted. “He established for them the order and the bounds of the faith”, and built them a church of the Most Holy Theotokos, in which he placed a copy that had miraculously passed onto a board from the icon given by the Queen of heaven. After this the Lord’s chosen one crossed the Persati mountain and set up a cross there (it is for this reason that this mountain was called the “Iron Cross”). The apostle then came to the village of Atskuri, which was formerly called Sosangeti. At that time the ruler of this region was a widow, Samdzivari, who had an only son. At that very time her son had died. The widow was told that there was a man there who prayed to an unknown God. This news gave birth to hope in her heart, and she summoned the apostle to her. Saint Andrew raised the widow’s only son from the dead. With thanksgiving the overjoyed woman believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, was baptised together with her son, and wrote a letter to the princes of Samtskhe, telling them of this event and summoning them all to her. “When the Meskhs heard this wondrous tale, they gathered swiftly from every side, and there was a very great multitude of people.” The servants of the idol-temple came too. The people split in two: some cried, “It is meet to worship Him that hath wrought such a miracle”, while others still remained faithful to the false gods. To settle the dispute, they decided to bring the icon of the Theotokos into the idol-temple and then lock the door. Those who hoped in the Saviour were to pray to Christ, and the idol-worshippers to their own deity. Guards were set at the locked temple. In the morning, when the door was opened, everyone saw “the idols cast down to the ground and shattered like dust, while the icon of the All-holy Theotokos shone like the sun with glory and honour”. Saint Andrew organised a church in Atskuri and placed the Theotokos’s icon not made by hands in a small chapel; then he parted from his newly converted flock and went on his way: he was in Klarjeti, in Artaan-Kola, in Parthia, in Armenia, and then went to Jerusalem.

From Jerusalem Andrew returned again to Georgia together with Simon the Canaanite and Matthias. They entered Kartli, strengthened Christianity, and “went on westward, and passed through the land of the Tao country as far as the Chorokhi”; they were in Samegrelo and Svaneti. Simon and Andrew went to Abkhazia: “And the great Andrew with Simon... entered the land of Abkhazia, and preached unto them the word of the knowledge of God, and many received that preaching with joy; and there the blessed Andrew left Simon the Canaanite with other disciples, and himself went up into the land of Jiketi.” The native people of Jiketi not only refused to accept his preaching, but even resolved to kill the apostle. Seeing their stubbornness and coarse minds, the apostle left them and went away. The holy Apostle Andrew was also in the land of the Scythians, present-day Russia. He went up the River Dnieper as far as the place where the city of Kiev now stands.

The last city in which the apostle preached was Patras (Greece). Through the saint’s prayer a great many people in this city were converted to the law of Christ, but the head of the city, Aegeates, still remained faithful to the false deity. The godless ruler ordered the Lord’s chosen one to be crucified. The saint met the sentence with joy and went up onto the cross of his own accord. To prolong his suffering, Aegeates ordered the blessed one not to be nailed to the wood, but to be tied to it. For two days the holy apostle preached to those gathered round. At last the people, shaken by the saint’s grace-filled words, demanded that he be taken down from the cross. The godless Aegeates gave the order to release the saint, but Andrew fervently besought the Lord to count him worthy to die on the cross. For a long time the soldiers tried in vain to take him down. The saint “lifted up his eyes to heaven and gave thanks unto the Lord, and blessed those believers, hanging upon the cross”. And so, giving thanks to God, the saint met his end. The wife of the city’s ruler took the apostle’s body down from the cross and committed it with honour to the earth. Several centuries later, in the reign of Constantine the Great, the incorrupt relics of the holy apostle were laid with honour in Constantinople and placed in the Church of the Holy Apostles beside the relics of the Evangelist Luke and the Apostle Timothy.

Often, because of the misfortunes of our history, the apostolic origin of our Church has been called into question. A witness to this is an episode described in the Life of Saint George the Athonite, in which Saint George defended the distinctiveness of the Church of Georgia before the Patriarch of Antioch with the following words: “Holy master, thou sayest: I sit upon the throne of Peter, the chief of the apostles. But we are the portion and the flock of the First-called, him that called his own brother, and by him were we converted and enlightened. And one of the holy twelve apostles — I speak of Simon the Canaanite — lieth buried in our land, in Abkhazia, in the place that is called Nicopsia. By these holy apostles were we enlightened. And since we have come to know the one God, we have never more denied Him. Nor hath our nation ever inclined unto heresy, and all deniers and heretics we anathematise and curse. Upon this foundation of Orthodoxy, and upon the commandments and preaching of those holy apostles, we stand firm.”

Let us entreat our helper and protector, Saint Andrew:

O holy Apostle Andrew, first called of the apostles, pray to God for us, that He may grant peace to the world and great mercy to our souls!