It's that time of year again when people across Scotland celebrate the country's heritage and patron saint, Andrew the Apostle.
While Saint Andrew is strongly associated with Scotland and its flag - the Saltire - other countries equally have him as their patron saint as well.
With countries far and wide acknowledging Andrew the Apostle, here are all the countries that have him as patron saint.
Why is Saint Andrew the patron saint of Scotland?
According to Brand Scotland, the Galilean (located in what is now Greece) was selected as Scotland's patron saint as he gave the fledgling kingdom several advantages.
Saint Andrew was selected as Scotland's saint in 1320 when the Scots made an appeal to the Pope in the Declaration of Arbroath for protection against English attempts at conquest.
He was thought to be a suitable choice as he was the brother of Saint Peter, the founder of the Church.
There are also a number of legends which have been used to explain why Andrew was selected as the kingdom's patron saint.
One myth states that the early Scots are descended from the Scythians who lived in what is now Romania and Bulgaria. Here, it is said the saint converted them to Christianity.
There were also rumours that St Andrew, who was said to have travelled far and wide to convert people, came as far north as Scotland to establish a church in Fife.
Regardless, St Andrew's Day is now Scotland's national day, taking place annually on November 30.
What other countries have Saint Andrew as their patron saint?
A number of countries have Saint Andrew as their patron saint such as the island nation of Barbados, Romania, Ukraine and Russia.
He is also the patron saint of several cities such as Pienza and Amalfi in Italy, Esgueira in Portugal, Luqa in Malta, Parañaque in the Philippines and Patras in Greece.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel