Andrew of Thessaloniki

Andrew of Thessalonica was bishop (archbishop) of Thessalonica at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the next, from the year 481 to 494, according to some sources. He is the only bishop or metropolitan of Thessalonica to this day with this name. The Bulgarian source calls him a saint, but the sources do not agree on his views and give no commemoration, and it remains unclear how far he is honoured as a saint.

The information preserved about his life and episcopate is very scanty. In a homily dedicated to the Annunciation, of 25 March 842, Archbishop Leo of Thessalonica mentions the memory of the holy Andrew of Thessalonica and says that he was born in Hierapolis in Syria, near the river Euphrates, that he became archbishop of Thessalonica after Euxitheus, in the time of the emperor Zeno (474 to 491), and that he died in the time of the emperor Anastasius (491 to 518). In the church of the Panagia Acheiropoietos in Thessalonica a mosaic inscription has been discovered, For the prayer of Andrew the humble, dated between 450 and 460. This Andrew of the inscription is identified with the presbyter Andrew, who was a representative of Archbishop Euxitheus at the Council of Chalcedon, in 451. Identification with Archbishop Andrew, the successor of Euxitheus on the throne of Thessalonica, is also very probable.

According to the Greek source, the only known fact is that he had a disposition friendly to the heresy of Arianism. Because of these views, Pope Gelasius I of Rome (492 to 496) sent a letter to the bishops of the East, urging them not to receive Andrew to Holy Communion. According to the Bulgarian source, however, Andrew was a supporter of the Henotikon, a Christological document of 482 issued by the emperor Zeno, meant to reconcile those who held to the Chalcedonian dogma and their opponents. For this reason Pope Felix III convened on 22 July 484 a synod, at which Acacius I of Constantinople was excommunicated, and so the Acacian schism arose between the Church of Constantinople and that of Rome. To reconcile with the Western Church, Andrew sent to Rome, on an unsuccessful mission to Pope Anastasius II, the deacon Photinus of Thessalonica. He died at the beginning of the sixth century.