Saint Andrew the Apostle

Called first, on an ordinary working day

Andrew's story begins on the water, doing the same job he'd likely done his whole life. Matthew records the moment plainly: "As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will send you out to fish for people.' At once they left their nets and followed him" (Matthew 4:18-20, NIV). According to John's Gospel, Andrew was in fact the very first person Jesus called to follow him — before Peter, before James, before anyone.

The brother who brought his brother

What Andrew does with that calling says as much about him as the calling itself: rather than keeping the moment to himself, he goes and finds Simon Peter and brings him to Jesus. It's a small act with an outsized consequence — the apostle who would become the Church's foundational "rock" was introduced to Jesus by his quieter, less-celebrated brother. Andrew never becomes the center of the story that follows, but the story wouldn't have Peter in it at all without him.

A death chosen on his own terms

Tradition holds that Andrew was martyred by crucifixion at Patras, in Achaea, around 60 AD — and that he specifically requested a cross different from the one Jesus died on, considering himself unworthy of an identical death. The result, according to that same tradition, was a crux decussata — an X-shaped cross, or saltire, now known simply as Saint Andrew's Cross.

From a Greek fishing town to Scotland's flag

That same X-shaped cross eventually traveled a long way from Patras. A later legend held that a cloud formation resembling the saltire appeared over a Scottish battlefield, leading King Óengus to adopt Andrew as Scotland's patron saint — and the white saltire against blue that became the design of Scotland's flag traces directly back to the shape of the cross Andrew is said to have chosen for himself, out of humility, nearly two thousand years earlier.