St. Andrew in Krisei (d. 767)

Not the archbishop of Crete who wrote the Great Canon, but a monk of the same island who died a generation after him. Andrew came to Constantinople in the reign of Constantine V, the emperor who made the destruction of icons law and filled his prisons with those who would not comply, and there, before the emperor himself, he rebuked him: whoever suffers for the icons suffers for Christ, and whoever insults the icon on which Christ is shown insults Christ. He was tortured and dragged through the streets to his death in 767. Christians buried him at a place called Krisis, "the Judgment", which gave him his name, and the monastery of St Andrew in Krisei, dedicated to him, still stands in Istanbul as the Koca Mustafa Pasha mosque. St Joseph the Hymnographer wrote his canon. Feast: October 17.