Apostle Andrew is one of the most well-known and enigmatic figures among Christ’s disciples. A tireless traveler and preacher, he suffered martyrdom in Patras on an X-shaped cross and became the hero of The Acts of Andrew, which sometimes reads like an engaging novel. On December 13, the Church commemorates his memory.
The apocryphal apostolic acts, excluded from the New Testament canon, form an important genre in Christian history. They reflect the ideological struggle between heretics and Orthodox Christians. In the Middle Ages, the concept of authorship did not exist, and various sects deliberately attributed their doctrines to the apostles. For example, The Acts of Paul and Thecla contain a sermon by Apostle Paul prohibiting marital relations and family life, contradicting traditional Christian teachings on marriage and the epistles of the foremost apostle.
In The Acts of Andrew, one can also find a message of celibacy, which ultimately leads to the apostle’s death. However, the primary focus is on Andrew's travels to the land of cannibals and his successful preaching among barbarians.
The narrative in The Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of Cannibals begins with the apostles drawing lots to determine where they would preach across the world. Apostle Matthias, later rescued by Andrew the First-Called, was sent to the city of cannibals, where “people ate neither bread nor drank wine but consumed human flesh and drank human blood. Anyone who came to their city was seized, blinded, and given a potion prepared through sorcery, which altered their heart and mind.”
This horrifying description reflects the traditional Roman and Byzantine (the Acts were written in Greek) perception of barbarians as mute, cruel beings devoid of reason and human likeness. The repulsive characterization of those who would later convert to the new faith highlighted the significance of the apostles’ mission, demonstrating their ability to transform even cannibals into Christians. This narrative device was widely used by Christian apologists, for whom Apostle Andrew became a “specialist” in converting cannibals.
The wicked city inhabitants captured Matthias, blinded him, and gave him the potion that turned him into a beast (this episode echoes the story of Odysseus, who avoided drinking a potion that transformed his companions into swine). Matthias was imprisoned for twenty-seven days, overhearing guards discuss his impending death and consumption by the townsfolk in three days.
Meanwhile, St. Andrew sets out to rescue the prisoner. Accompanied by his disciples, he sails on a ship piloted by Christ in the form of a beautiful youth. Along the way, Andrew teaches his companions the basics of Christianity. Upon arriving in the city of cannibals, the First-Called Apostle liberates the prisoners, leading to famine in the city. Horrific scenes unfold—residents decide by lot to kill the elderly to stave off hunger temporarily, but one barbarian offers his children instead. Andrew undergoes days of torture, dragged through the city by ropes. Eventually, the apostle performs a miracle, causing a statue in the prison to release torrents of saltwater that corrode the cannibals’ flesh.
Amazed, the pagans come to believe in the “God of the foreigner.” The Acts conclude with Andrew's extensive sermon, the punishment of the most cruel cannibals, and the establishment of a new Christian community.
According to researcher Andrey Vinogradov, the sermon is the central element of the text, while the adventurous journey serves as a means to draw readers to the teachings of the foremost apostle.
This narrative device was employed by both Christian and ancient authors, embedding important reflections within biographies or lives of saints. The historian Plutarch, in one of his comparative biographies, explicitly states that the purpose of historical writing is to help readers choose good and avoid evil.
It’s worth noting that the apostle’s sermon is one of the least captivating sections of The Acts for modern readers. It recounts the Gospel story and the moral teachings of Christ in great detail. The Acts repeatedly emphasize that neither the apostle nor his disciples accept any payment for their work and preach extreme asceticism everywhere. They perform numerous miracles, heal the sick, exorcise demons, and raise the dead, ultimately opening the hearts of even the wildest barbarians.
Another hagiographic text from the corpus of The Acts of Andrew describes a successful mission among cannibals. The Story of Saint Chrysomeus is devoted entirely to a cannibal who encounters an angel forbidding him from harming the apostles and urging him to aid St. Andrew and his disciples. The angel transforms his savage nature into a meek one.
The transformed Chrysomeus appears before Christ’s disciples in all his terrifying grandeur: “He stood six cubits tall (2–3 meters), his face wild, his eyes blazing like fiery lamps, his teeth protruding like a wild boar’s, and his fingernails curved like sickles, while his toenails resembled those of a large lion. His appearance was so fearsome that merely seeing his face could be fatal.” Upon seeing him, St. Andrew fainted, and his companion Bartholomew called for help, while another disciple simply passed out. The barbarian, miraculously fluent in Greek, recounted the angelic vision and joined the apostles to preach in a city of Parthians.
Chrysomeus initially requested to cover his face to avoid frightening people. However, when the initial preaching efforts failed and townsfolk set wild beasts upon the Christians, Chrysomeus prayed to return to his original savage nature. He removed his face covering, tore the beasts apart before the crowd, and terrified the populace into believing in the Christian God. Afterward, Chrysomeus became meek again, resurrecting and baptizing those who had died of fear, as well as the animals he had slaughtered. His paths eventually diverged from those of the apostles.
This story depicts Andrew not only as a preacher but also as a bearer of Roman culture and civilization. A Jew by birth, he takes on the role of a Roman citizen. Christian apologists used this image to persuade imperial authorities of the faith’s value. It’s evident that Chrysomeus’ conversion doesn’t change his nature but renders it harmless and controlled. For the legend’s author, he remains a barbarian-Christian, while Andrew embodies Roman culture with an eloquent appearance and carefully constructed speech, bringing civilization to wild lands.
This function of Apostle Andrew is also emphasized in the legend of his cross being planted on the hills where Kiev would later arise. The Tale of Bygone Years connects this act with the subsequent spread of Christianity and culture in Rus’.
The chronicler talks about Andrew even visiting baths and marveling at the peculiar custom of using birch brooms. Although this apocryphal story is not founded on Andrew’s Life, it reflects the desire of Rus’ ancestors to transform from barbarians, as perceived by the Byzantines, into an ancient Christian cultural people preached to by the First-Called Apostle.
Ivan the Terrible also used this argument in a debate on faith with Jesuit Antonio Possevino. The Russian tsar rejected the idea that Rus’ received its faith exclusively from the Greeks, instead claiming that Christianity was first brought to Rus’ by the apostles. As we see, the image of Apostle Andrew was used even by rulers to assert their claim to being sovereigns of a Christian civilization.
