On this day, July 4 according to the Julian Calendar (July 17 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Andrew of Crete, Archbishop, who reposed between 712 and 726 AD.
Saint Andrew was born in Damascus around the year 660 AD to a devout Christian family. Until the age of seven he was unable to speak, but after receiving Holy Communion for the first time, the gift of speech was given to him. This miracle was a foreshadowing of the extraordinary eloquence that would later make him one of the greatest hymnographers of the Orthodox Church.
At the age of fourteen, Andrew was brought to Jerusalem, where he was received into the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. He lived at the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, distinguishing himself by his learning, piety, and ascetic life. Around the year 685, the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent the young Andrew to Constantinople as a representative at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681), which condemned the Monothelite heresy. After the council, Andrew remained in Constantinople, where he was made a reader and later an archdeacon of the Great Church.
During a severe famine in Constantinople, Andrew organized care for orphans and the elderly, overseeing a large orphanage. He was then appointed Archbishop of Gortyna on the island of Crete, a position he held for the rest of his life.
Saint Andrew is most celebrated as the author of the Great Canon — a vast penitential canon of 250 troparia addressed to every person in Scripture who either sinned and repented or was righteous and pleasing to God. This masterwork is chanted in the Orthodox Church on the Thursday of the fifth week of Great Lent, and portions of it are sung at Great Compline during the first week of Lent. It is the longest canon in all of Orthodox hymnography and is deeply treasured by the whole Orthodox world.
Among his other hymns, Saint Andrew composed canons for the Nativity of the Theotokos, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and the Nativity of Saint John the Forerunner.
He reposed in peace on the island of Mitylene while returning to Crete, around the year 712–726.
May the intercessions of Saint Andrew of Crete be with us all.