Feast Day of St. Andrew

ExecutedToday.com ^ | November 30, 2014 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

...November 30 is the feast date of St. Andrew the Apostle, Christ‘s very first disciple along with his brother St. Peter.

Andrew gets pretty short shrift in the New Testament compared to his brother, even though the Gospel of John actually credits our man with being the first of the two boys to cotton to the Nazarene’s preaching.

Despite playing such a minor role in the sacred texts, he has a cultural footprint far in excess of fellow apostolic extras like Saint Bartholomew.

After the master’s crucifixion, Andrew is supposed to have preached in Turkey and Greece. Romanian and Kievan Rus’ traditions posit that he wandered even further north to make the first Christian inroads among their pagan forebears; as a consequence, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine are all among the countries that count Andrew as a patron saint, along with the place of his martyrdom, Greece.

The most recognizable such patronage, of course, is Scotland....

[Verginius Rufus]

Patras, Greece, has a large church (with gorgeous mosaics) which has what they claim are parts of the cross St. Andrew was crucified on.

St. Andrew in Spanish is San Andreas. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the city was unable to sue St. Andrew's descendants (it's not known if he had any children) even though it was San Andreas' fault.