medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 10/20/11, Terri Morgan sent:
> Today, October 20, is the feast of:
> Andrew of Crete / the Calybite /in Crisis (d. 766) One of two Andrews of Crete from the same period, this Andrew is also known as the Calybite. According to his closely posthumous Bios, he was a monk of Crete who lived very ascetically as a stylite until the year 767, when he was so outraged at the emperor's iconoclast edict that he went to Constantinople to complain. Constantine called him an idolater; Andrew called him a heretic. He was tortured, then abandoned to a mob of iconoclasts who hounded him through the city, cut off his right foot, and then lynched him. His body was thrown into a common grave (or a cesspit) but sympathizers coming by night were able miraculously to recognize it among all the others and gave it honorable burial in a part of the city called Crisis.
>
> Andrew's burial church was an already existing one of St. Andrew the Apostle. The monastery attached to it is recorded from 792 onward as one for women. The original titular was venerated elsewhere in the city (notably at the church of the Holy Apostles) and in fairly short order our Andrew became the recognized saint of this church. The latter was rebuilt by Basil I (r. 867-886); it was rebuilt again in around 1284. In 1348 or 1349 the traveler Stephen of Novgorod visited this church and kissed Andrew's body. Between 1486 and 1491 Andrew's church was converted into a mosque. Re-oriented to face southeast and re-decorated within, it is now known as Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque (also as the Sünbül Efendi Camii).
>
See now Dirk Krausmüller, "The Identity, the Cult, and the Hagiographical Dossier of Andrew 'in Crisi'", _Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici_, n. s. 43 (2006; distributed in 2008), 57-86. Krausmüller argues convincingly that, apart from his Christian name, everything that's said about this Andrew in his hagiography is a fiction supporting a cult that was created in the monastery in Crisis not long after the termination (843) of Byzantine Second Iconoclasm. A Constantinopolitan martyr of Byzantine First Iconoclasm named Andrew had earlier been celebrated on 20. October (Krausmüller identifies him with Andrew of Blachernae, beaten to death in 761-762) along with others named Stephen, Paul, and Peter. In Krausmüller's presentation, by the middle of the ninth century their cult had fallen into desuetude and the monastery replaced it with this one centered on its possession of a newly produced wonder-working body said to be that of the previously undocumented martyr Andrew of Crete.
Best,
John Dillon
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