Andrew of Constantinople

Andrew of Constantinople (Andrew the Fool-for-Christ or Andrew, the Fool; ) is considered a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and is revered as a fool for Christ.

According to the Life of Andrew the Fool, he lived in the fifth century, during the reign of Byzantine emperor Leo I; however, some historians believe he lived in the ninth to tenth centuries, during the reign of Leo VI, due to anachronisms in the text and similarities to the lives of other holy fools, including Simeon the Holy Fool and Basil the Younger.

Biography Over 110 complete and fragmentary Greek manuscripts containing various editions of the Life of Andrew the Fool have survived, with the oldest being a fragment of a manuscript dating to the second half of the 10th century. The Life says that Andrew lived during the time of Leo I as well as Daniel the Stylite (died 493).

Andrew, a Scythian by birth, was a slave of Theognostus, who was serving as a bodyguard in Constantinople. Later, he decided to become a fool for Christ, living out his goal with humility and patience.

According to certain sources, Andrew had a vision of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Blachernae church of Constantinople, while the city was surrounded by enemy troops (by some sources, Muslim Arabs).

The Life was widely disseminated in Russian literature, with the account of Andrew's vision of the Holy Mother of God serving as the basis for a new Russian feast by Andrey Bogolyubsky in the 1160s. The first translation to Old Russian was completed in the late 11th or early 12th century. More than 200 copies of this translation are known, with the oldest complete copy dating to a 14th-century manuscript. No later than the 14th century, a new translation of the Life was completed by the South Slavs, likely Serbs.