In one of a handful of scriptural references, he is the apostle who tells Jesus that five loaves and two fishes won't feed 5,000 people; a miracle soon proves otherwise.

Like other widely honoured saints, Andrew himself defies the laws of finitude by appealing to so many people in so many places.

Thirtieth November is a big feast day for Scotland, Romania, Cyprus, the Greek port of Patras and for Christians in Istanbul; in 13 days' time, the same feast will be celebrated in places where the old church calendar is kept, such as Russia and Ukraine.

And whenever it is observed, the annual feast day of Saint Andrew brings reminders that the first apostle of Jesus Christ, one of two fisherman brothers, can still create political waves.

Take Scotland. Andrew has been that country's official patron saint since 1320, and he was venerated there for centuries before that.

The diagonal white cross of Saint Andrew was flying defiantly in Edinburgh today, although yesterday's helicopter crash in Glasgow cast a pall over the commemorations.

Alex Salmond, head of the Scottish Nationalists, used the national holiday to stir patriotic feeling ahead of next year's independence ballot. Even his reaction to the helicopter crash mentioned the saint; he said today was a good moment to take pride in Scotland's resilience.

Meanwhile David Cameron has hoisted the Scottish emblem over his prime-ministerial residence in London and issued a Saint Andrew's message with the opposite intention: to remind the Scots of how well they have done as Brits. Continue reading.

Source: The Economist

Image: Form Ministry

The offer by Archbishop Chrysostomos II came after the country's Parliament rejected a bill that would have allowed the government to seize up to 10 per cent of people's bank deposits to secure the bailout.

At the same time, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades called on Archbishop Chrysostomos to appeal to the Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russias, Kirill I of Moscow, to intercede with the Russian government for help.

The Cypriot government hopes that Russia will extend a line of credit that Moscow gave in 2011 and is due in 2016.

"The wealth of the church is at the disposal of the country," Archbishop Chrysostomos said after he met Anastasiades.

The Orthodox Church is the largest landowner on the island and has stakes in businesses including the country's Hellenic Bank, with total assets estimated to run into tens of millions of euros. It also has shares in a brewery.

Cyprus needs $NZ24.7 billion to bail out its banks and shore up government finances to avoid default and a potential exit from the European joint currency.

It wasn't immediately clear what the total value of the Orthodox Church's assets would be, or how much of that value the church was actually willing to lend the government.

Sources:

CBC News

AsiaNews

Image: LGR