Today is the feast day of the first of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew the Apostle. Because he is the patron saint of Scotland, today is a national holiday there.
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I occasionally joke that St. Andrew is also the patron saint of golf. (St. Andrews is a nice town that happens to be attached to a very lovely golf course). I've been assured that it is actually St. Jude (hopeless cases) and/or St. Anthony (missing objects) who is the correct patron. Not being a golfer myself, I'm willing to accept corrections.
A happy coincidence! It is also St. Andrew's feast day in the East. He is also patron of Romania and, relevant to something I read recently, preached to the Rus in Kiev.
Troparion (Tone 4)
As the first-called of the Apostles and brother of the foremost disciple, Andrew, entreat the Master of all to grant peace to the world and to our souls great mercy.
Kontakion (Tone 2)
Let us praise Andrew, the herald of God, the namesake of courage, the first-called of the Savior's disciples and the brother of Peter. As he once called to his brother, he now cries out to us: "Come, for we have found the One whom the world desires!"
Re "preached to the Rus in Kiev" -- that seemed a bit odd and got me wondering so I did a little reading and there is no way that happened. It is possible he went through the area where Kiev is now and preached to whoever was there at the time, but Kiev wasn't founded for another 450+ years and the Rus (Rus'?) weren't there for centuries after that. I shall be more skeptical of my sources.
I think you’re being sufficiently skeptical. It struck you as funny so you checked it yourself, and corrected the record on your own.
The traditions include some hysterical claims: you’ll get noble or royal houses developing alleged family trees tying themselves to Jesus himself, even. Scotland has a pretty unlikely claim on St Andrew too (and plenty of native saints they could have picked). The Holy Grail stories turn on Joseph of Arimathea coming to Britain with the cup and spear from the crucifixion. It’s ok that the stories are what they are as literature; we do need to be able to separate the literature from the history.
You should probably read most of these evangelization stories as posthumous-- that is, unnamed missionaries bearing relics of Saint X evangelized country Y, and attributed their successes to the power and intercession of the saint, rather than their own worthiness. Over time, the distinction got blurred to just "St. X came to country Y and evangelized the populace, that's why we have his relics in our cathedral and make pilgrimages to the site."
Yes, and I should know more history. I'm afraid I know a great deal about very, very narrow slices of history and there are huge swathes that are almost absent for me, like Russian history -- mostly a blank until the 19th century.
That sounds like good advice. As I've read more about the ancient Church, it's struck me how much Christians did not want to take credit for accomplishments and instead gave it to their predecessors. In some cases, this also seems to have had a more corporate sense of ownership. A community might accomplish something, but they gave the credit to their spiritual leader or a past saint. It's an interesting contrast with today's intellectual property focused culture.
7 comments:
I occasionally joke that St. Andrew is also the patron saint of golf. (St. Andrews is a nice town that happens to be attached to a very lovely golf course). I've been assured that it is actually St. Jude (hopeless cases) and/or St. Anthony (missing objects) who is the correct patron. Not being a golfer myself, I'm willing to accept corrections.
LittleRed1
A happy coincidence! It is also St. Andrew's feast day in the East. He is also patron of Romania and, relevant to something I read recently, preached to the Rus in Kiev.
Troparion (Tone 4)
As the first-called of the Apostles
and brother of the foremost disciple,
Andrew, entreat the Master of all
to grant peace to the world
and to our souls great mercy.
Kontakion (Tone 2)
Let us praise Andrew, the herald of God,
the namesake of courage,
the first-called of the Savior's disciples
and the brother of Peter.
As he once called to his brother, he now cries out to us:
"Come, for we have found the One whom the world desires!"
Re "preached to the Rus in Kiev" -- that seemed a bit odd and got me wondering so I did a little reading and there is no way that happened. It is possible he went through the area where Kiev is now and preached to whoever was there at the time, but Kiev wasn't founded for another 450+ years and the Rus (Rus'?) weren't there for centuries after that. I shall be more skeptical of my sources.
I think you’re being sufficiently skeptical. It struck you as funny so you checked it yourself, and corrected the record on your own.
The traditions include some hysterical claims: you’ll get noble or royal houses developing alleged family trees tying themselves to Jesus himself, even. Scotland has a pretty unlikely claim on St Andrew too (and plenty of native saints they could have picked). The Holy Grail stories turn on Joseph of Arimathea coming to Britain with the cup and spear from the crucifixion. It’s ok that the stories are what they are as literature; we do need to be able to separate the literature from the history.
You should probably read most of these evangelization stories as posthumous-- that is, unnamed missionaries bearing relics of Saint X evangelized country Y, and attributed their successes to the power and intercession of the saint, rather than their own worthiness. Over time, the distinction got blurred to just "St. X came to country Y and evangelized the populace, that's why we have his relics in our cathedral and make pilgrimages to the site."
--Janet
Yes, and I should know more history. I'm afraid I know a great deal about very, very narrow slices of history and there are huge swathes that are almost absent for me, like Russian history -- mostly a blank until the 19th century.
That sounds like good advice. As I've read more about the ancient Church, it's struck me how much Christians did not want to take credit for accomplishments and instead gave it to their predecessors. In some cases, this also seems to have had a more corporate sense of ownership. A community might accomplish something, but they gave the credit to their spiritual leader or a past saint. It's an interesting contrast with today's intellectual property focused culture.
Post a Comment