Saint Andrew of Crete

Oct 282010

Saint Andrew of Crete
Also known as

Andreas of Crete
Andreas of Jerusalem
Andrew of Jerusalem

4 July

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Young monk at Mar Sabas. Monk at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem at the age of 15. Sent to Constantinople by Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem in 685 to accept the decrees of the Council of Constantinople. He stayed there as head of an orphanage and a men’s home for aged. Deacon at the church of Santa Sophia in Constantinople. Archbishop of Gortyna, Crete c.700.

Noted and eloquent preacher, he wrote Greek liturgical poetry and many idiomela (short hymns). May have introduced the Byzantine litugical hymn form known as kanon; his Great Kanon, a penitential Lenten hymn, is still sung in the Byzantine liturgy.

In 712 he attended a synod convened by Phillipicus Bardanes, a Monthelite imperial usurper who denounced the orthodox decisions of the Council of Constantinople. When Bardanes was overthrown, Pope Constantine accepted that Andrew attended the heretical synod under duress, and welcomed him back.