It's 345AD, Patras, western Greece, and a Bishop has a dream instructing him to take the relics of St Andrew away before Emperor Constantine does. He leaves by ship with some followers and ends up shipwrecked off Kilrymont, a Pictish settlement on the east coast of Scotland. The local King welcomes this band and so this Bishop, known as St Rule dedicates a Church to St Andrew. This is the origins of a town that became the most important ecclesial centre in Scotland and our oldest University.
However there is doubt surrounding this telling, the other story is that in 737AD Bishop Saint Acca of St Andrews at Hexham in Northumbria who had for reasons unknown now, been exiled from his Abbey and brought with him relics of St Andrew to the town. Regardless, there was a Church dedicated to St Regulus here prior to a Church dedicated to St Andrew and today we can still see St Rules Tower if you visit it.
This story in particular is quite interesting because it goes to not only the foundation of an important town but the origin story of Scotland itself. At the battle of Athelstaneford in 832AD, the Pictish King, Oengus, being chased by the Northumbrian King made his final stand near the village named after this Northumbrian in East Lothian. It was here that as King Oengus prayed for deliverance a white cross appeared in the sky. From then on King Oengus vowed to make St Andrew his patron and of course they won the battle beating the Northumbrians and the Saltire was born.
The historicity of all the accounts surrounding St Rule, the relics of St Andrew and how he came to be our patron (and not St Columba say) are problematic. What it does show is how politicised Saints were and how Monarchs and peoples used them to identify and differentiate themselves from others.
This was very much the vogue when St Andrew was invoked in 1320 in the Declaration of Arbroath as Scotlands Patron in an attempt by Robert I and other nobles to persuade the Pope that Scotland was an independent nation and should not be under English rule. In 1385 King Robert II ordered his soldiers to wear a white saltire.
The relics that were in the town of St Andrews were destroyed during the Scottish Reformation but in 1879 the Archbishop of Amalfi sent a piece of the shoulder blade of St Andrew to the newly re-established Catholic community in Scotland and in 1969 Pope Saint Paul VI also gifted Scotland with some more relics of the Saint. These are now housed in St Mary’s in Edinburgh.
The story of the relics is quite a journey but we must never forget that behind all this was a real man called Andrew who had an encounter with our Lord and along with his brother took the gospel to those who didn’t know it; suffering for it as a result he was crucified in an X-Shape but now lives alongside the rest of the Saints constantly giving intercession for all of us on earth. Pray for us and our nation St Andrew!