Patrick Comerford
I am staying in Rethymnon for five days, having arrived here late yesterday afternoon. I am staying in the Brascos Hotel in the centre of the town, and woke this morning to the sound of the church bells of the Church of the Four Martyrs, just a few steps from the hotel, at the end of Daskalaki Street, and the cathedral nearby.
It is still Lent in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Fifth Week of Lent in Greece is marked by its intensity, and many people find they are tested and challenged, yet nourished and comforted, by the spiritual therapy it offers.
Today, the Fifth Thursday of Lent, is marked with the Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete, which seems an appropriate coincidence as I am in Crete, although this service is usually held the previous (Wednesday) evening, and I was present for part of that in the cathedral in Rethymnon last night.
The Great Canon is also known as the Canon of Repentance or the Great Canon of Repentance, and is an eighth-century masterpiece by Saint Andrew of Crete, the. It is the longest canon ever composed, with 250 strophes or verses of nine odes, and it runs to 49 pages in the standard English translation. It is written primarily in the first person, and goes chronologically through the entire Old Testament and New Testament, drawing examples (both negative and positive) that it correlates to the need of the sinful soul for repentance and a humble return to God.
Saint Andrew’s Great Canon has been described as ‘a kind of walk through the Bible.’ It is divided into four parts that are chanted at Great Compline on the first four nights of Great Lent (one part per night). Later, it is chanted in its entirety at Matins on this Thursday.
Saint Andrew begins with Adam and Eve and goes through the full biblical text, as he speaks to his soul, and to us, by applying the stories and characters of the Bible.
When speaking of the Great Canon, the great Orthodox theologian Father Alexander Schmemann says ‘the events of sacred history are revealed as events in my life, God’s acts in the past as acts aimed at me and my salvation, the tragedy of sin and betrayal as my personal tragedy. My life is shown to me as part of the great and all-embracing fight between God and the powers of darkness which rebel against him … The canon begins on a deeply personal note … one after another, my sins are revealed in their deep connection with the continuous drama of man’s relation to God; the story of man’s fall is my story.’
Saint Andrew of Crete (Ἀνδρέας Κρήτης) also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was an eighth century bishop, theologian, preacher and hymn-writer.
Andrew was born in Damascus ca 650, to Christian parents, and was mute until the age of seven. According to his biographers, he was miraculously cured after receiving Holy Communion. He began his ecclesiastical career at 14 in the Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, near Jerusalem, where he quickly gained the notice of his superiors.
Theodore, the locum tenens of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (745-770) made him his archdeacon, and sent him to the imperial capital of Constantinople as his official representative at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681), which had been called by Emperor Constantine Pogonatus to counter the heresy of Monothelitism.
Shortly after the council, he was summoned back to Constantinople from Jerusalem and appointed Archdeacon at the Great Church of Hagia Sophia. Eventually, Andrew was appointed to the metropolitan see of Gortyna, in Crete.
Although he had been an opponent of Monothelitism, he nevertheless attended the conciliabulum of 712, in which the decrees of the Ecumenical Council were abolished.
He repented the following year and returned to Orthodoxy. From then on, he spent his time preaching and composing hymns. As a preacher, his sermons are known for their dignified and harmonious phraseology, and he is regarded as one of the great church orators of the Byzantine Era.
Today, Saint Andrew of Crete is primarily known as a hymn writer. He is said to have invented, or at least introduced into the liturgy the canon, a new form of hymnody. Previously, the portion of the Matins service that is now the canon was composed of chanting the nine biblical canticles, with short refrains inserted between scriptural verses. Saint Andrew expanded these refrains into fully developed poetic odes, each beginning with the theme (irmos) of the scriptural canticle, but he then goes on to expound the theme of the feast being celebrated that day.
His masterpiece, the Great Canon – also known as the Canon of Repentance or the Great Canon of Repentance – is the longest canon ever composed, with 250 strophes. It is written primarily in the first person, and it goes chronologically through the entire Old Testament and New Testament, drawing examples, both negative and positive, that it correlates to the need of the sinful soul for repentance and a humble return to God. It is divided into four parts or odes that are chanted at Great Compline on the first four nights of Great Lent, one part each night. Later, it is chanted in its entirety at Matins on Thursday of the fifth week of Great Lent, which falls today (18 April).
Saint Andrew of Crete is reputed to have written 24 canons. Of these, we can be more or less certain that he wrote 14, including: the canons for the Resurrection of Lazarus, chanted at Compline on the Saturday, ie Friday night, before Palm Sunday; the Conception of Saint Anne (9 December); the Maccabean Martyrs (1 August); Saint Ignatius of Antioch (20 December); as well as four Triodia, and no fewer than 107 irmoi.
There is no consensus among Church historians on the date of his death. But it is known that he died on the island of Mytilene on his way back to Crete from Constantinople, where he had been on church business. His relics were later moved to Constantinople. The piousRussian pilgrim Stephen of Novgorod saw his relics at the Monastery of Saint Andrew of Crete in Constantinople in 1349. At modern Skala Eresou on Lesbos (ancient Eresos), a large, Early Christian basilica-style church is named in honour of Saint Andrew of Crete. His feast day is on 4 July in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.
