St. Andrew’s Day a Time of Celebration

One of Jesus’ original apostles, St. Andrew only made it to Scotland after he died. As the legend goes, Andrew preached throughout Greece and Asia Minor making converts after the death of Jesus. The Romans were trying to obliterate Christianity, so they arrested the apostle and crucified him on a diagonal cross in southern Greece, where he was also buried.

After 300 years, Emperor Constantine wanted to move St. Andrew’s remains to Constantinople. The legend states that a Greek monk (or possibly the Irish assistant of St. Columba) by the name of St. Regulus (or St. Rule) had a dream that he must protect Andrew’s bones by removing them to the ends of the earth. At the time, Scotland was on the edge of the known world, so Regulus decided to take some of the bones there. He either landed or was shipwrecked by a small settlement on the east coast of Scotland, which became St. Andrew’s.

A more believable story is that Acca, the Bishop of Hexham and collector of religious relics, bought the bones and brought them to Scotland in 733 AD where there was quite possibly a religious settlement already in existence.

Regardless of how they arrived, a chapel was built to house the bones and later, in 1160, the Cathedral of St. Andrews was erected. St. Andrews became the religious center of Scotland and was an important place of pilgrimage during medieval times.

The bones later disappeared, possibly during the Reformation when Catholic idols and similar objects were destroyed. The site where the bones were is now marked with a plaque in the ruins of the cathedral in St. Andrews.

Some of Andrew’s bones were stolen from Constantinople by Crusaders in the early 1200s and ended up in Italy. Certain fragments were sent to Scotland in 1879 by church leaders and then Pope Paul VI brought additional relics to Scotland in 1969. These are now displayed in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh.

The cross of St. Andrew is the national flag of Scotland, one of the oldest flags in Europe. St. Andrew’s feast day falls on Nov. 30, and is celebrated with traditional Scottish food, music and dancing.