30th Nov is St Andrew's Day or the feast of Saint Andrew, celebrated each year. Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and St. Andrew's Day is Scotland's official national day, although Burns' Night is more widely observed. In 2006, the Scottish Parliament designated the Day as an official bank holiday.
Known in the UK as the patron saint of Scotland, but Andrew is also patron saint of Russia, Romania, Greece, Amalfi and Luga in Malta. He was also the patron saint of Prussia. The flag of Scotland and consequently the Union Flag, feature St Andrew’s saltire cross.
About the middle of the tenth century, Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought under supernatural guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rìmhinn).
The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the other in the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London.
They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) — the name is preserved by the tower of St. Rule — was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his date, however, is c. 573–600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St. Andrews. The connection made with Regulus is, therefore, due in all probability to the desire to date the foundation of the church at St. Andrews as early as possible.
Another legend says that in the late eighth century, during a joint battle with the English, King Ungus (either the Óengus mac Fergusa mentioned previously or Óengus II of the Picts (820–834) saw a cloud shaped like a saltire, and declared Andrew was watching over them, and if they won by his grace, then he would be their patron saint. However, there is evidence Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this.
Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's younger brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Saint Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle".
Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Saint Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to St Andrew.
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