First Called

My son’s middle name is Andrew, after his mother’s uncle. The name itself means “brave one” in Greek. Today is the feast of Saint Andrew, a brave man if ever there was.

Saint Andrew is sometimes known as “First called” since he was the first of John the Baptist’s followers to become disciples of Jesus. He quickly recruited his brother Simon (later called Peter) and John son of Zebedee. All three were fishermen, and all left their boats and nets to become “fishers of men”. John brought his older brother James. And so it began.

My first born is inadvertently named after the first called.

After the resurrection, tradition has it that Andrew traveled up to the Black Sea, preaching in what is now Turkey, Ukraine, and southern Russia. He established communities of believers and consecrated Bishops for them. At the time, most of this area was Greek-speaking. Indeed, the southern areas were part of the Roman Empire.

One of the sees founded by Andrew was at the town of Byzantium in AD 38, where he ordained a man named Stachys as bishop. In the fullness of time, this little see became the Patriarchate of Constantinople. It always seemed fitting to me that the “two lungs” of the Church (as Blessed Pope John Paul II called them) should have been founded by the two brothers, Peter and Andrew.

He continued south to preach in Greece, where he was crucified at the city of Patras. Like his brother Peter, he requested he not be killed in the manner of Christ. It amused his executioners to hang him on an x-shaped cross.