A Happy Saint Andrew's Day to all our readers! Saint Andrew, Apostle of the Lord, brother of Saint Peter and Patron of Scotland, was put to death at Patras, Greece, in 60 AD. In the year 345, St. Regulus, a monk of Patras, was told in a dream to take the bones of Saint Andrew “to the ends of the earth”, and so he brought them to Scotland, which in those days was on the edge of the Roman Empire, and would have been thought of as the end of the known world. He landed at what we now call Saint Andrews. Churches have been built there since, the most imposing being the cathedral consecrated in the presence of King Robert the Bruce in 1318. It is now in ruins like so many of our medieval buildings but you can still see the scale of it. One building still in remarkably good condition is the Tower of Saint Rule (a translation of Regulus). In the year 832 the Scots and the Picts called upon Saint Andrew to help them against the English, at Athelstaneford in East Lothian. They saw a cloud formation resembling the Saltire which gave them assurance that their prayers had been heard. The Saltire, reputedly the oldest flag in Europe, became the national flag, and Saint Andrew became the Patron of Scotland.
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