Andrew the Fool for Christ

Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ lived in Constantinople and is honoured as one of the most notable "fools for Christ". From the vision he had, with his disciple Epiphanius, at Blachernae, the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God was born. The Church remembers him on 2 October (15 October by the civil calendar), the day after the feast of the Protection.

Life

According to his Life he lived in the time of Emperor Leo I, in the fifth century, and of Daniel the Stylite, but some historians, because of anachronisms and similarities with the lives of other fools for Christ, Symeon of Emesa, Basil the Younger and Nephon of Cyprus, place him in the ninth or tenth century, in the time of Leo VI. More than a hundred and ten Greek manuscripts survive, in editions and fragments, the oldest being a fragment from the second half of the tenth century. He was Scythian or Slavic by birth and was a slave of the wealthy Theognostus, an official of Constantinople. He was handsome and gentle in nature, so Theognostus grew fond of him and had him taught Holy Scripture. He loved the Church and wished to give himself to God. He took up the hard struggle of folly for Christ, that is of behaving as though mentally ill, and, driven out by his master, lived in the streets, hungry, cold and half-⁠clothed. For years he endured mockery, insults and beatings. He begged alms and gave them to the poor. He never reproached God for this, and prayed for those who struck him. Through meekness and self-⁠control he received the gift of prophecy and wisdom, helping many with his counsel. He took off the mask of folly only before his spiritual father, a priest of Hagia Sophia, or his disciple Epiphanius.

The vision at Blachernae

It is said that when the city was surrounded by enemy troops the people gathered in the church of the Mother of God at Blachernae, where a vigil was being served. Andrew, praying there with his disciple Epiphanius, saw the Mother of God, surrounded by light, with angels and saints. She prayed long, kneeling, with tears, then took the great veil, the omophorion, from her head and spread it as a covering over the people. Andrew said to Epiphanius: "Do you see, brother, the Holy Mother of God praying for the whole world?", and Epiphanius answered: "I see her, holy father, and am filled with wonder." The vision meant the deliverance of the city, and the enemy troops withdrew. From it comes the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, one of the best-⁠loved Orthodox feasts.

Veneration

The Life of Andrew was translated into Georgian, Church Slavonic and Old Russian, in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, and spread widely in Russian literature. More than two hundred copies of that translation are known. On the basis of his vision, in the 1160s Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky established the feast of the Protection in Russia. A new translation of the Life was made, no later than the fourteenth century, by the Serbs. Some scholars say the Life was written by a Nikephoros of Constantinople in the tenth century, and in Sreznevsky's view an old life of the sixth century may have existed, reworked in the tenth. Saint Andrew fell asleep, according to some sources, in 936, at the age of sixty-⁠six. The Greek churches commemorate him also on 28 May.