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Leigh Hatts  

St Andrew beyond Scotland

Reliquary containing St Andrew’s arm in the Dominican church of St Andreas in Cologne

The last day of November is special in Scotland because it is St Andrew’s Day.

But St Andrew, brother of St Peter, is also patron of Greece, Poland, Romania and Russia.

Andrew was martyred today in Greece by being crucified upside down on an X shaped cross which is recalled by the St Andrew cross.

Relics are held on the site in Patras and also in Amalfi, Italy. Both towns hold an outdoor procession.

St Andrew’s Day has great resonance in Barbados where the day is a holiday and the cross of St Andrew appears in the country’s heraldry. It is independence day and the Commonwealth country has chosen 30 November this year to become a republic.

The Saxon church at Greensted-Juxta-Ongar in Essex, the world’s oldest wooden building, is dedicated to St Andrew.

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