Born in Damascus in c. 650, to Christian parents. From birth, Andrew was a mute until he was the age of seven. According to his hagiographers, he was miraculously cured after receiving Holy Communion. He began his ecclesiastical career at fourteen in the Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified, near Jerusalem, where he quickly gained the notice of his superiors. Theodore, the locum tenens of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem made him his Archdeacon, and sent him to the imperial capital of Constantinople as his official representative at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which had been called by the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, to counter the heresy of Monothelitism. Shortly after the Council he was summoned back to Constantinople from Jerusalem and was appointed Archdeacon at the "Great Church" of Hagia Sophia. Eventually, Andrew was appointed to the metropolitan see of Gortyna, in Crete. Although he had been an opponent of the Monothelite heresy, he nevertheless attended the conciliabulum of 712, in which the decrees of the Ecumenical Council were abolished. But in the following year he repented and returned to orthodoxy. Thereafter, he occupied himself with preaching, composing hymns, etc. As a preacher, his discourses are known for their dignified and harmonious phraseology, for which he is considered to be one of the foremost ecclesiastical orators of the Byzantine epoch. Church historians are not of the same opinion as to the date of his death. What is known is that he died on the island of Mytilene, while returning to Crete from Constantinople, where he had been on church business. His relics were later transferred to Constantinople. In the year 1350 the pious Russian pilgrim Stefan of Novgorod saw his relics at the Monastery of Saint Andrew of Crete in Constantinople. At modern Skala Eresou on Lesbos is a large Early Christian basilical church in honour of St. Andrew. The feast day of Saint Andrew of Crete is July 4 on the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.
Hymnography
Today, Saint Andrew is primarily known as a hymnographer. He is credited with the invention of the canon, a new form of hymnody. Previously, the portion of the Matins service which is now the canon was composed of chanting the nine biblical canticles, with short refrains inserted between the scripture verses. Saint Andrew expanded these refrains into fully developed poetic Odes, each of which begins with the theme of the scriptural canticle, but then goes on to expound the theme of the feast being celebrated that day. His masterpiece, the Great Canon, is the longest canon ever composed. It is written primarily in the first person, and goes chronologically through the entire Old and New Testaments drawing examples which it correlates to the need of the sinful soul for repentance and a humble return to God. It is divided into four parts which are chanted at Great Compline on the first four nights of Great Lent ; later, it is chanted in its entirety at Matins on Thursday of the fifth week of Great Lent. Twenty-four canons are reputed to have been written by Saint Andrew of Crete. Of these, we can be more or less certain that he wrote fourteen, including: the canons for the Resurrection of Lazarus ; the Conception of St. Anne ; the Maccabean Martyrs ; St. Ignatius of Antioch, as well as four Triodia, and no fewer than one hundred and seven irmoi.
