Andrew of Crete

Andrew was born around 650 in Damascus to pious Christian parents. He was mute from birth until the age of seven, when he was miraculously healed after receiving Holy Communion. From that moment he began to study the Holy Scriptures earnestly. At fourteen he went to Jerusalem and entered the Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified. He led a strict and chaste life, gained renown for his asceticism and theological learning, and was made patriarchal archdeacon by Theodore the locum tenens. In 680 Theodore sent him as Jerusalem’s representative to the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (680–681) against Monothelitism. He stayed in the capital and was appointed Archdeacon at Hagia Sophia. Under Justinian II (685–695) he was consecrated Bishop of Gortyna in Crete. He composed the Great Canon of Repentance with its 250 troparia and many other hymns. He briefly fell into the conciliabulum of 712 but repented in 713. He reposed on July 4 on the island of Mytilene while returning from church business in Constantinople.

Saint Andrew was born around 650 in Damascus to a deeply pious Christian family. The most remarkable fact of his early childhood was that he was mute from birth. He could not speak at all. The condition was a source of deep grief for his parents through his early years. When he was seven years old, he was brought to the liturgical service of the church and received the Holy Mysteries of Christ for the first time. At that moment, after he had received the Body and Blood of the Lord, he was miraculously healed and began to speak. The gift of speech that the Lord had withheld for seven years was granted to him in the moment of his first communion. From that moment the boy began earnestly to study the Holy Scriptures and the discipline of theology, recognizing in his gift of speech a particular calling from the Lord who had granted that gift through the Holy Mysteries.

Saint Andrew’s early formation in the Holy Scriptures from age seven onward had prepared him for the monastic vocation. At fourteen he left his family in Damascus and went to Jerusalem. There he accepted monastic tonsure at the Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified (Mar Saba), the great monastic community in the Judean wilderness about ten miles southeast of Jerusalem. The Lavra had been founded by Saint Sabbas in the late fifth century and had become one of the great monastic centers of the entire Christian East. Saint Andrew led a strict and chaste life at Mar Saba. He was meek and abstinent, such that all the brethren were amazed at his virtue and his reasoning of mind. He pursued the Sabaite ascetical discipline, giving himself to unceasing prayer, liturgical participation, fasting, and theological study.

Saint Andrew’s theological learning and monastic virtue at the Lavra of Mar Saba came to the notice of the ecclesiastical authorities of Jerusalem. He was numbered among the Jerusalem clergy and appointed secretary for the Patriarchate. At the time the Patriarchal throne of Jerusalem was vacant; Theodore, the locum tenens (acting administrator) of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, made the young monk Andrew his patriarchal archdeacon. In the year 680 Theodore included Archdeacon Andrew among the representatives of the Holy City sent to the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (680–681). The Council had been called by the Emperor Constantine IV (668–685) to counter the Monothelite heresy — the teaching that Christ has only one will, against the apostolic teaching that he has two wills (one divine and one human). Saint Andrew contended at the Council against the heretical teaching, relying upon his profound knowledge of Orthodox doctrine.

Saint Andrew’s theological achievement as a hymnographer was the founding of the new liturgical form known as the canon. Before his work, the portion of Matins which is now the canon was composed simply of the chanting of the nine biblical canticles (the Song of Moses, the Song of Hannah, the prayer of Habakkuk, the prayer of Isaiah, the prayer of Jonah, the prayer of the Three Holy Children, the Magnificat of the Theotokos, the Benedictus of Zacharias) with brief refrains inserted between the scriptural verses. Saint Andrew expanded these refrains into fully developed poetic odes, each beginning with the theme (the irmos) of the scriptural canticle and going on to expound the theme of the feast being celebrated that day — whether the Lord, the Theotokos, a saint, or the departed. The new form would replace the older kontakion of Saint Romanos as the main hymnic form of the all-night vigil and would dominate Byzantine liturgical hymnography for the next thirteen centuries.

Saint Andrew’s masterpiece is the Great Canon of Repentance — the longest canon ever composed with 250 troparia organized into nine odes. The Great Canon is written primarily in the first person and goes chronologically through the entire Old and New Testaments, drawing examples both negative (the falls of the biblical figures who sinned) and positive (the repentances of the biblical figures who turned back to the Lord) for the instruction of the penitent soul. The Great Canon is chanted in the Eastern Orthodox Church on the evenings of the first four days of Great Lent (divided into four portions) and in its entirety on the Thursday morning of the fifth week of Great Lent. The canonical recitation of the Great Canon during Lent is one of the most spiritually intense liturgical experiences of the entire Eastern Orthodox liturgical year. Before each troparion the faithful make the Sign of the Cross and bow deeply, singing the refrain: “Have mercy upon me, O God, have mercy upon me.”

Shortly after the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Saint Andrew was summoned back to Constantinople and appointed Archdeacon at the Great Church of Hagia Sophia. He served at Hagia Sophia for some years in this senior diaconal position. During the reign of the Emperor Justinian II (685–695), Saint Andrew was consecrated Bishop of the city of Gortyna on the island of Crete. As Bishop of Crete he served as a luminary of the Christian Church — a great hierarch, theologian, teacher, and hymnographer. The one regrettable episode in his otherwise glorious life was his momentary attendance at the conciliabulum of 712 under the Emperor Philippicus Bardanes, which attempted to abolish the decrees of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Saint Andrew consented to the council’s abolition of the apostolic Christology. In the following year (713), upon the deposition of Philippicus and the restoration of the apostolic Christology under the Emperor Anastasius II, Saint Andrew repented of his error and was restored to full Orthodox communion.

The biblical foundation of Saint Andrew’s Great Canon of Repentance is the deep penitential tradition of Psalm 51 — King David’s deep prayer of repentance after his deep sin with Bathsheba. The Great Canon extends the deep penitential vision of Psalm 51 across the entire biblical narrative, drawing the examples of deep sin and deep repentance from Genesis to the Apocalypse to move the soul of the faithful Christian to contrition. The refrain “Have mercy upon me, O God, have mercy upon me” between the troparia is the direct echo of Psalm 51’s opening words: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness.” May we, in our own particular lives, pray with David and with Saint Andrew for the clean heart and the right spirit that only the deep mercy of God can create in us.

Saint Andrew reposed on July 4 in either 712, 726, or 740 — the precise year is not preserved in the historical record. He died on the island of Mytilene (Lesbos in the Aegean Sea) while returning to Crete from Constantinople, where he had been on church business. He was buried at the church of Saint Anargyroi (the holy Unmercenaries) on Mytilene. His relics were later transferred to Constantinople and deposited at a monastery that came to bear his name. In the year 1350 the pious Russian pilgrim Stephen Novgorodets saw the relics at the Constantinople monastery named for Saint Andrew of Crete. His feast day is celebrated on July 4 on the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.

Andrew gives the Christian Church a particular gift: the early Eastern dramatization that the providence of God grants particular gifts even to those who began their lives in apparent inadequacy. He was mute until age seven. He was healed through Holy Communion. At fourteen he entered the Lavra of Saint Sabbas. He defended the apostolic Christology at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680–681. He served as Archdeacon of Hagia Sophia and Bishop of Gortyna in Crete. He founded the canon as a new liturgical form. He composed the Great Canon of Repentance with its 250 troparia. He briefly fell into the conciliabulum of 712 but repented in 713. He reposed on July 4 on Mytilene. We may not be hymnographers. But we are all called to trust that the providence of God grants particular gifts to each of us for the particular vocations he has prepared.