Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called

A fisherman of Bethsaida and disciple of John the Baptist, Andrew heard his master say 'Behold the Lamb of God,' followed Jesus that same hour, and then did the most consequential thing of his life: 'he first found his own brother Simon' and brought him to Christ. Hence his title, the First-Called. In the Gospels he is the quiet connector — producing the boy with five loaves, bringing the Greeks with Philip. Tradition from Origen onward assigns him Scythia and the lands around the Black Sea; the Rus chronicles carry him, legendarily, up the Dnieper to bless the hills where Kiev would stand, making him patron of Ukraine, Russia, and Romania alike, while Byzantium honored him as founder of the see that became Constantinople. He is said to have been crucified at Patras in Greece; the X-shaped cross of his iconography is a later medieval tradition.