ANDREW OF CRETE, SAINT

born c. 660, , Damascus, Syria died July 4, 740, ; feast day July 4 archbishop of Gortyna, Crete, regarded by the Greek Church as one of its greatest hymn writers. From his monastery in Jerusalem he was sent to Constantinople (modern Istanbul), where he became deacon of the Hagia Sophia. During the reign of the Byzantine emperor Philippicus Bardanes he was made archbishop of Gortyna and took part in the Synod of Constantinople (712), where he subscribed to Monothelitism (see Monothelite). He recanted his Monothelitic views in 713. In developing the Byzantine liturgy, he is credited with inventing the kanon, a new genre of hymnography that consists of nine odes in stanzaic form, each sung to a different melody. His canon replaced the kontakion, a homiletic hymn of which all stanzas were sung to the same melody. Andrew was the author of many hymns and canons still used in Greek liturgical books.