Quiz on Saints’ Lives

The Venerable Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, nicknamed Jerusamlit, was born in the third quarter of the seventh century in the Middle East, in the city of Damascus, which then still belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire. It is known that his parents were devout Christians; the child Andrew himself remained mute until the age of seven. One day the gift of speech appeared to him after receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ. This miraculous healing had a very strong influence on the spiritual disposition of the young man brought up in Christian piety. Without abandoning the knowledge of secular sciences, he carefully studied the works of the holy Fathers, becoming more and more inclined to a solitary monastic life. At the age of fourteen, Andrew withdrew to the famous Jordan Lavra of the Monk Sava the Sanctified, where, after a time of monastic testing, he was appointed notary (i.e. letter-writer). At the end of the 7th century, he wrote wonderful liturgical works: the Great Penitential Canon, the Canon of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, the Stanzas for Ash Wednesday Vespers and for the first four days of Holy Week, verses for the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, and other sacred hymns.