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'''Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete''', was born in the city of Damascus into a pious Christian family. Up until seven years of age the boy was mute and did not talk. However, after communing the [[Holy Mysteries]] of Christ he found the gift of speech and began to speak. And from that time the lad began earnestly to study [[Holy Scripture]] and the discipline of theology.
At fourteen years of age he went off to [[Jerusalem]] and there he accepted monastic tonsure at the monastery of [[Save Sava the Sanctified|St. Sava the Sanctified]]. St Andrew led a strict and chaste life, he was meek and abstinent, such that all were amazed at his virtue and reasoning of mind. As a man of talent and known for his virtuous life, over the passage of time he came to be numbered among the Jerusalem clergy and was appointed a secretary for the Patriarchate - a writing clerk. In the year 680 the locum tenens of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, Theodore, included [[archdeacon]] Andrew among the representatives of the Holy City sent to the [[Sixth Ecumenical Council]], and here the saint contended against [[heresy|heretical teachings]], relying upon his profound knowledge of Orthodox doctrine. Shortly after the Council he was summoned back to Constantinople from Jerusalem and he was appointed archdeacon at the church of [[Hagia_Sophia_%28Constantinople%29|Hagia Sophia]], the Wisdom of God. During the reign of the emperor Justinian II (685-695) St. Andrew was ordained [[bishop]] of the city of Gortineia on the island of Crete. In his new position he shone forth as a true luminary of the Church, a great hierarch - a theologian, teacher and [[hymnographer]].
St. Andrew wrote many liturgical [[hymn]]s. He was the originator of a new liturgical form - the [[canon]]. Of the canons composed by him the best known is the [[Great Canon|Great Penitential Canon]], including within its 9 odes the 250 [[troparion|troparia]] recited during the [[Great Lent]]. In the First Week of Lent at the service of [[Compline]] it is read in portions (thus called "methymony", and again on Thursday of the Fifth Week at the [[All-night Vigil]] during [[Matins]].
