ST ANDREW
THE APOSTLE
The Bible tells us that Andrew, a fisherman from Bethsaida in Galilee, was the
‘first called’ of Christ’s disciples and that he brought his brother Simon Peter
to become a follower of Jesus. After the Crucifixion, as tradition relates,
Andrew traveled the countries bordering the Black Sea and preached the Gospel in
Scythia (as the Ukraine and Southern Russia were anciently known) and in Greece.
(For a link between Scythia and the Scots, see the part of the Arbroath
Declaration quoted overleaf). His missionary work is still remembered in that
part of the world: to this day Andrew is patron saint in Greece, Russia and the
Ukraine. It was in Greece, in the city of Patras, that he suffered martyrdom.
Possibly because he felt himself unworthy to meet his death on a cross of the
same shape as his Lord’s, he was crucified on a diagonal cross.
Part of the tradition is that St Andrew wore blue, and so the white of the
wooden cross against the blue of his robes gave Greece the colors of their
national flag. However, there is another legend to explain the white cross on a
blue background, a legend which had its birth a long way from Greece, in the
village of Athelstaneford in East Lothian.
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