Today, November 30, is the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle. St. Andrew was the first to accept the Lord’s call to be an apostle, and was one of the first men to follow the Lord’s precursor, St. John the Baptist.
St. Andrew, after finding and being found by the Lord Jesus, ran to his brother Simon Peter and announced that he had found the Messiah. He bade Simon to “come and see” which Peter did without hesitation. Tradition has it that St. Andrew preached in various places after the Lord’s death, and was crucified in Acaia.
This feast day is extremely important to the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, for St. Andrew is its patron. The patriarch of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, also celebrates today his 20th anniversary of being elected patriarch.
Finally, the Church in Constantinople commemorates on this day the “Feast of the Translation of the Relics of St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom.” Their relics had been taken and transported to Rome during the Crusades, only to be returned to their original resting place in 2004, aiding in the healing old wounds between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox.
You can read some interesting history on this at: www.patriarchate.org/patriarhate/relics
St. Andrew, pray for us!
