Andrew of Crete, Saint

ANDREW OF CRETE, Saint. - Byzantine orator and hymnographer, b. at Damascus around 660, d. at Porto di Erisso, on the island of Mytilene, on 4 August 740. A monk at Jerusalem, he remained there until 685, when he was sent to the emperor Constantine Pogonatus to convey the adherence of the patriarchate of Jerusalem to the decisions of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (681). He was therefore called Gerosolimitano, but he is better known under the name of A. of Crete, because, toward the end of the 7th century or at the beginning of the 8th, he was appointed bishop of Gortyna, the Cretan metropolis.

While he was metropolitan of Crete, A. had the weakness to yield to the injunctions of the usurper Philippicus Bardanes, signing the decrees of the conciliabulum of Constantinople of 712, which re-established Monothelitism and condemned the Sixth Ecumenical Council. But he atoned for this error, the following year (713), after the disappearance of Philippicus, by adhering to the dogmatic definition of the Sixth Council (cf. A. Heisenberg, Ein iambisches Gedicht des Andreas von Creta, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 10 [1901], pp. 505-14), and then he energetically opposed the decree of Leo the Isaurian against the images (PG 19, 1301-1304).

A. also distinguished himself as a preacher. His sermons are only partly published: twenty-two homilies or panegyrics are gathered in PG 97, 805-1302. To these must be added a Panegyric of St. George, in Acta SS. Aprilis, III, Antwerp 1675, pp. 123-31, another of St. James, the Brother of the Lord, edited by A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, in Ἀνάλεκτα Ἱεροσολωτικῆς στεχνολογίας, V, pp. 1-14. On the unpublished homilies see J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca, XI, Hamburg 1740, p. 84. The authenticity of the published homilies is generally recognized. The five homilies on the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, contained in cod. Laud. graeca. 81 of the Oxford library, are apocryphal. The orator's style is elaborate and sometimes obscure.

As a hymnographer, A. was the initiator of the poetry of the canons and the principal representative of this genre. He also left numerous tropes, called idiomela, a kind of rhythmic antiphons each having its own melody. On the poetic work of A., see the very complete article of L. Petit, André de Crète, in DACL, I, coll. 2034-41.

Quaestor, published by Papadopoulos-Kerameus in vol. V of the Ἀνάλεκτα Ἱεροσολωτικῆς στεχνολογίας, pp. 169-80. The principal published works are gathered in PG 97, 805-1302. On the published and unpublished poetic works see the cited article of L. Petit. Several are found scattered in Byzantine liturgical books. See also: M. Jugie, Saint André de Crète et l'Immaculée Conception, in Echos d'Orient, 13 (1910), pp. 120-33; O. Bardenhever, Geschichte der althochlichen Liturgie, V, Freiburg im Br. 1932, pp. 152-57. Martin Jugie