-image-Our Patron Saint

Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church, Lawton, OK ANDREW hurried to tell his brother the news. He had met and talked with Christ, had heard John the Baptist say, “Behold the Lamb of God!” and had been enlightened enough to comprehend the pre-eminence of our Lord. These were the things he wished to share with his brother, Simon Peter. With what enthusiasm he must have said, “We have found the Messiah!”

Andrew was a native of Bethsaida, Galilee, on the banks of Lake Genesareth. Like his father, Jona, he was a fisherman. After he had heard Saint John the Baptist preaching penance, Andrew became his disciple. It is because of this fact that we are able to know something of Andrew’s personality; for in order to become a disciple of John, he must have had in some degree the qualities that were the Baptist’s. Saint John was an acknowledged leader of men, a zealous lover of God, and a man of deep humility. These qualities must have been mirrored in Andrew.

After Andrew’s first meeting with the Savior, he and Peter became disciples of Christ even though they did not follow Him constantly. They went to hear Him speak as often as they could, when they were not occupied with their fishing. But one day Christ called them permanently to His side. Finding them at work pulling their nets from the waters of the lake, Christ bade them leave all this and come follow Him. And so they did. They became fishers of men, casting their nets of grace into a sea of sinners and offering the fruit of their toil to the Son of God.

In the New Testament we find Andrew faithful to Christ and leading others to Him. There is the incident of the gentile strangers in Jerusalem who, longing to meet Christ, were timidly holding back, fearing the rebuff that was common when gentile met Jew. They first spoke to Philip, Andrew’s friend, but it was Andrew who brought them to the Master. And it was Andrew who, at the time of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, pointed out to Christ the boy with the small basket of food.

After the death and resurrection of Christ, Andrew waited with the other apostles the coming of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament has nothing further to say about Andrew, but some early historians state that he preached the gospel in Scythia and Greece.

On the strength of this tradition, Saint Andrew is the patron of Russia, for Scythia was the territory of a savage nomadic tribe that occupied sections of Europe and Asia that are now included in Russia. He is honored also as patron of Scotland. It is not said that the saint preached in Scotland, but legend does tell the story of a Saint Regulus, a native of Patras in Greece, who had in his care the relics of Saint Andrew and who had been told by an angel to convey them to a place “toward the end of the earth” in a northwesterly direction. Regulus did so, stopping at a place in Scotland at a sign given by the angel. The spot was thereafter called Saint Andrew’s, and a church was built to shelter the relics.

The apocryphal account of Andrew’s death says that he was crucified at Patras in Achaea (a province of the peninsula that forms part of the mainland of Greece). He was not nailed to the cross but bound to it by ropes. From this cross he preached to the people for two days before he died.